MEET ABDULHAKIM LUYIMA: PRODUCT DESIGNER OF UGANDA’S FIRST ECO-FOOTBALL

Football is not just a sport. It is a world phenomenon. As a child, football, or soccer as it is known in some parts, took different forms. Because we often did not have the space for conventional football, we came up with all sorts of versions. Small goals – a miniature version of the game with smaller posts.

Then there was my favourite – “Ggi Luyi” that directly translates from Luganda as “Egg-slap”. Its rules were as simple as they were brutal. The goal was (literally) to ‘score’ between one of the players’ legs – also known as ‘laying an egg’. Once that happened, the ‘hen’ would be slapped, kicked – basically mobbed until he touched a sanctuary set aside at the start of the game. Yeah, simple but savage.

For games like these, we often made balls out of anything soft and dry enough to be kicked – banana fibres, polythene (kaveera), socks, you name it. This ingenuity didn’t start with us. History has it that three millennia ago, there was a team game involving a ball made from rock. What we now know as football came to be in the 1800s. Thank God.

Speaking of ingenuity, I reached out to Abdulhakim Luyima – a 21-year-old Ugandan designer. He is the product designer of “Lulu”, Uganda’s first eco-football. Luyima was contacted by Sportrise, a 4-year-old Ugandan social entreprise based in Ibanda (a Ugandan district) that manufactures footballs, to create the identity and outlook for their product: a ball locally made from plastic waste.

This is impressive because Luyima’s penchant for design is new-found.

“At the start of the pandemic, I discovered a passion for design,” Luyima says. “I spent the entire lock-down in an apprenticeship program with my aunt who had been doing Graphics design for over 20 years. On December 29^th, 2020, I started a design agency with my friends called ‘KREATE STUDIO’ where we have since worked on product design, UI/UX design and creating identities for different brands (including Sportrise).”

The end-product of Kreate Studio’s partnership with Sportrise is the Lulu – a FIFA certified eco-football with Afrocentric design. “Lulu is Kiswahili for Pearl,” Luyima says. Like pearls, the Lulu is not only round, but a product of waste. Pearls are formed from sand ingested by Oysters. Though Oysters have no use for sand, they hoard whatever grains they ingest and through amazing natural processes, form the pearls we know and adore.

One could say the Lulu is a pearl too. They are made by Sportrise from disposed plastic bottles and manufactured in Africa’s pearl, Uganda. Luyima says his colourful design of Lulu is a “tribute to contemporary African art, culture, and football. The KwaNdebele inspired pattern (of the Lulu) emphasizes this connection with vibrant, dissonant colours which represent the bold African art style of the post-impressionism era marked by creators such as Ibrahim El-Salahi.” The Ndebele are a South African tribe with intriguing culture and multi-coloured clothing.

Just like the Lulu, Luyima’s inspirations are deeply African. His and Kreate Studio’s ambitions are shaped by trailblazing African designers that have gone before them.

“I am also heavily inspired by Virgil Abloh (RIP) who was the artistic director of Louis Vuitton” Luyima says, “Since he is a person of colour who originated from Ghana, we see him as a strong influencer for our work.”

Asked about African design and its prospects, Luyima has this to say. “I believe design in Africa is at the very starting point. We have little information concerning our design culture and we are trying to define it. I think, as Africans, we are taking a step forward as far as converting our artistic culture and using it to communicate ideas on a global scale is concerned.”

“Africa has a very strong affiliation to art and generally, we are very artistic people. The Royal Regalia, the patterns, the pots, the huts, the beads, and the clothing speak for themselves. All these ornaments are rich in culture, however, that hasn’t been communicated much through our design, and that is our task. Art should serve our purposes and communicate ideas. We can promote our cultures using design by incorporating the visual elements of these deeply rooted cultures into our products/designs today.”

Abdulhakim Luyima is making his mark not only in the world of African football, but African design. He believes design should always communicate identity, even if it’s moving at a speed of 45mph triggered by human feet.