Arts and Design Studies www.iiste.org ISSN 2224-6061 (Paper) ISSN 2225-059X (Online) Vol.60, 2017 1 A Conceptual Shift in Educational Logo Designs: The Impact of Kwame Nkrumah’s Cultural Policy on Ghana’s Educational Philosophy Jerry Orhin Yorke 1 Emmanuel Kodwo Amissah 2 Joseph Essuman 3 Patrique deGraft-Yankson 3 1.JID Multimedia Consult, Takoradi, Ghana 2.Department of Textile Design and Fashion Studies Education, University of Education, Winneba, 3.Department of Graphic Design, University of Education, Winneba Abstract This paper explores the conceptual shift in educational logo designs as an indirect result of Kwame Nkrumah’s cultural policies on Ghana’s educational philosophy. The study was an Art Historical research situated within the qualitative research paradigm and the data collection instruments used were interviews, field notes, observation and discussions. It had a population of a defined class of cultural policy makers, art historians, traditional rulers, nationalists, visual artists and Ghanaians resident both in and outside Ghana. The study was concerned with qualities and non-numerical characteristics of the data. The data collection techniques used was observation and structured interviews and the data collected was in the form of narrations. The study examined how the ideologies of the founding fathers of the formal educational institutions established in Ghana both before and after political independence. It identifies the significance of the ethnic insignias and Adinkra symbols used in capturing their visual corporate identities as against the reorientation of the thinking of the “new” Ghanaian. The selected educational institutions used for the study are Adisadel College - Cape Coast, Wesley Girls' Senior High School - Cape Coast, St. Augustine’s College - Cape Coast, Ghana National College - Cape Coast, University of Cape Coast - Cape Coast, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology – Kumasi and University of Education, Winneba – Winneba. Keywords: Adinkra, Ideologies, Kwame Nkrumah’s cultural policies, Philosophy of Africa’s formal education. 1. Introduction Present day Ghana is a conglomerate of ethnic states right from the 10 th Century AD. From the mid-1800s to 1957, it became a British colonial territory. Known as the Gold Coast until 6 th March 1957, Ghana became the first black African state south of the Sahara to gain political independence. The new black African state, drawing on the traditions and cultures of its ethnic groups, took its name from the medieval empire of Ghana which occupied an area around the upper Niger River, several hundred miles to the northwest of present day Ghana. It has a total land area of 238,500 sq. Km, a coastline of 539 Km (Encarta, 2009) and more than 50 different ethnic groups. Ghana had a lot of cultural intangibles which together inspired Kwame Nkrumah in the crafting of a new foundation of nationhood based on the “Ghanaian national” culture and that meant the Ghanaian ethnic art forms, artefacts, motifs, symbols, etc. which were labelled as primitive by the colonisers should server as assets for national development. After independence, Nkrumah saw the need to immediately recognise the “Ghanaian national” cultural heritage and took pride in projecting it. Botwe-Asamoah (2005) claims that “It was over the entrance of Nkrumah to Ghana’s political scene in 1947 that the proposition was put forward that colonialism was evil and must be overthrown now”. He continues to state that “Not only did Nkrumah use African art forms, orature, aesthetics, motifs and symbols, during and after the campaign for national independence, but he also initiated policies and created cultural movements and institutions in Ghana” (p120). Formal education in Ghana dates back to the arrival of the European missionaries to the coast of the Gold Coast some centuries age. The nature and style of their education were structured on the philosophies behind their commissioned missionary activities, chief of which was the spread of the Gospel of Christ. Traditionally, Ghanaian ethnic cultures, over the many years of their civilizations, had used the arts and crafts to ensure their continuous existence. The pursuit of Nkrumah’s African Personality concept after independence also made it possible for a conceptual shift in educational logo designs in Ghana. The African had an educational system before colonisation. It was by these systems that the African impacted on new generations. Mothers taught their children the uses of leaves and roots of plants and these made the culture an applied science. The culture gave birth to science and it was applied and not a science that was taught in theoretical form. Africans sustained their environment by declaring a day free for a week of non- agricultural activities. There were no classrooms, but they lived in the society and the society itself was the teacher and that made it an experiential education. There existed formal education, however in the crafts, drumming, fishing and farming. In any case, people could read and interpret philosophies behind the symbols (for example, the Adinkra symbols) so they could not be described as illiterates (K. 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