Hanson Akatti is a graphic designer, illustrator and character designer from Ghana. He is one of Ghana’s leading digital illustrators with an impressive, prolific portfolio. His work incorporates comic book art, hip-hop, graffiti and the whimsical. He adopts an airbrush art style with a sometimes fluid, painterly colour palette.

Hanson is a maverick with song covers, having designed some of the best covers in Ghanaian music. This includes the covers of FOKN Bois, Efya, Juls M.anifest and EL among others. His work on M.anifest’s Nowhere Cool album, for instance, was even featured on Wacom Gallery. Additionally, you can read more about his work on that album over at yoyo tinz.

Exercising his creative muscle and showing his love for music, Hanson created a series of posters of albums he was excited about called The Hip Life. The Hip Life is an utter delight to behold not only for the diversity and beauty of the posters but for how earnest the series is in promoting amazing new music acts from Ghana. The Hip Life is available here.

Hanson Akatti has also exhibited his work at a number of exhibitions. These include Stargaze Odyssey, Vernacular: an Art Expo (by Nii Arnettey) and Art Water 2 among others.

Akatti has created very memorable art, as a result, of his grasp on urban culture. For instance, the general art direction for Nkenten Magazine and the wildly popular The School Boy from The Chale series. Likewise, on the animation front, Hanson Akatti has worked on Magnom’s Economy and Foodies, the short-lived TV series.

Get to know Hanson better by listening to him talk about art and pop culture on the AccraWeDey podcast while you check out his art below.

Enjoy.

More Hanson Akatti

Watch this short piece on Hanson by the CulArt Blog team below.

See more of Hanson Akatti’s work on Behance, Instagram, Tumblr, Facebook, Blogspot and an archived version of his portfolio website.

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Bahari Blue is Squid Mag’s Kadi Yao Tay and Kofi Sydney Asare’s and illustrator Bolaji “Art Nerd X” Olaloye’s scrapbook of favourite African (including the diaspora sometimes) artists they love, are inspired by and believe the whole world needs to know about.

So far we’ve featured Alfred Achiampong, Venus Bambisa, Malcolm Wopé, Simangaliso Sibaya, Kofi Ofosu, Ifesinachi Orjiekwe, Kudzai Ngundu, Salim Busuru, Rodney Tawanda Ngundu, Juni Ba, Poka Arts and Natasha Nayo.