By Günther Kriel, Founder & Creative Director
Earlier this September, I had the privilege of travelling to Algiers, Algeria to participate in the CANEX Creative Writing Workshop 2025, hosted under the banner of the Intra-African Trade Fair (IATF 2025), a continental event that brings together policymakers, entrepreneurs, and creatives to reimagine Africa’s economic and cultural future.
Representing both myself as a writer and Rueko Studio as a creative studio, the experience was profoundly affirming. It reminded me why we started Rueko Studio in the first place: to design for connection, communication, and cultural impact.
Much like my trip to Finland for the Legal Design Summit 2023, this journey was both professional and personal: a study in how design, storytelling, and innovation intersect within different cultural and economic contexts. But unlike Helsinki’s Nordic precision, Algiers pulsed with Mediterranean warmth and unapologetic complexity.
A City Between Continents
Algiers felt like a living mosaic, part African, part Arab, part Mediterranean. From the whitewashed facades overlooking the sea to the winding streets of the Casbah, the city felt layered, textured, and deeply storied.
Everywhere I looked, I saw a reflection of our philosophy: design as narrative. Each building, poster, and marketplace seemed to tell a story of coexistence: between tradition and modernity, between art and commerce, between the individual and the collective.
Arriving at the Palais des Expositions (SAFEX), the main venue for IATF, I was struck by the scale of it all. Delegates from over fifty countries, exhibitions spanning trade, fashion, technology, and creative industries. The event’s message was clear: Africa is not the future; it is now.
Inside the CANEX Creative Writing Workshop
The CANEX Creative Writing Workshop brought together a cohort of emerging and established writers from across the continent, from Nigeria and Ethiopia to Ghana and Kenya, even from the Caribbean Islands of Grenada. The sessions were led by experienced facilitators who emphasised the craft of storytelling, the discipline of publishing, and the politics of cultural production.
For me, it was more than just a writing workshop; it was a deep dive into how stories function as design systems. Each narrative, whether fictional or journalistic, serves as a form of information architecture, framing how we perceive reality and possibility.
As a visual designer, I couldn’t help but draw parallels between narrative design and visual communication. In both disciplines, clarity and empathy are central. Whether crafting a novel, designing a website, or producing a legal document, the underlying question remains the same: How do we make information human?
Design Meets Trade: The Bigger Picture of IATF 2025
While CANEX focused on creativity, the broader Intra-African Trade Fair was a macrocosm of economic potential. The theme, Connecting African Markets, invited participants to think critically about trade, innovation, and industrialisation across the continent.
Yet amidst the talk of trade deals and digital transformation, what stood out to me was the role of creative industries as catalysts for integration. Design, storytelling, and communication are not decorative afterthoughts; they are strategic infrastructure.
This insight reinforces what we’ve always believed: that good design has the power to translate policy into participation, and culture into commerce. Whether through a government portal, a publishing imprint, or a brand identity, design is the connective tissue of modern Africa.
Looking Ahead
As we continue to evolve as a studio, this experience has reaffirmed our commitment to building a design practice rooted in African reality yet globally fluent.
Our stories, our systems, and our designs all share a common ambition: to make information accessible, experiences meaningful, and creativity sustainable.
Travelling to Algiers reminded me that design is ultimately an act of connection: between ideas and audiences, between words and visuals, between nations and their narratives.
We exist in that in-between space: where art meets strategy, and where creativity becomes a force for change.
