Ghanaian thrilled to design national shirt

Designer Godfrey Donkor is excited after national team kit supplier, Puma incorporated his designs for the new Ghana jersey.

The 47 year-old designer works in London and works in paint, mixed media collages and printmaking, mixing styles and imagery.


Donkor, who started the new designs last year, explains the concept behind the designs.


“The title of the football kit for the Ghanaian national team is Raining Black Stars, the original concept being that the team will 'Rain' on their opponents whenever they play. As I believe this project incorporates art with design, it is important to me that the kit is shown to be a functional piece of artwork," he said of his designs.

"I started working on the designs just before the World Cup began last year in South Africa. This was also before the Ghana national team captured the imagination of the world with their performance during the finals. With the concept and title, I wanted to create a series of drawings which, when transferred onto the kit of the team, would also inspire their performance. The diagonally falling dark stars mirror the team in formation, in attack and in defence, protecting the red, gold and green stars, which are the national interest. For me, it is important that the works by all the different artists from Africa are used to represent the scope of contemporary art practice on the continent today.”


And the designer is even thrilled to have Ghana striker, Asamoah Gyan, who modeled the new designs, endorse it.


"Asamoah Gyan was at the awards and thankfully, he liked it, he was very pleased," Donkor added