Culture and tradition

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Introduction to West-African folk designs

West Africa is well known for its rich culture and tradition, it relies on cloth design for some country to communicate proverbial thought. Their art and craft which range from decorative baskets and mats, calabash, body art, cast iron, paintings on huts and various objects.

In Ghana the Kente which is a handmade pattern of stripes woven in silk or cotton which also depicts traditional means of communication, riddles and storytelling.[]

The Adire, Batik, Guinee and Aso-oke are predominantly used traditionally to make patterns and designs in Nigeria. Also in the eastern part of Nigeria, Uli which is a traditional design drawn by Igbo women to depict their culture. Patterns made from draft and strip. While in Mali the use of rhythm and Hue are used traditionally to make Boubous. Ivory Coast uses Wrapper or Blanket.[]

Many cultural drawings all over the world which has geometry design include Kolam which are traditional drawings of Tamal people of south Indian. They use Kolam as a traditional art for decorating temples.[]

These drawing are drawn either connecting the dots or going around the dots and complete as closed curves.[]

The Chokwe people of the south western part of Africa mainly in Angola have traditional drawings done both on sound or an object, this drawing are called SONA or plural LUSONA.[]

The SONA where used for storytelling, making riddles, proverbs, games or in decoration. They were used mostly by the elders to teach cultural values to the children.

Each drawing consists of a set of dots and curves. The drawing begins with a dot and ends at where it started initially to form a loop.[]

Aims & Objectives

The aim of this paper is to show how a traditional design such as the Sona shows how geometry principles could be used to form various patterns using information technology. The focus will be applying such design to create new and better design pattern.

This system will enable us to make various pattern used in the textile and fashion industry, in Tilling, as an interface for games or mobile phones and also as a tool in mathematics.

This interface will be flexible, easy to learn and easy to use and will encourage the user to experiment and try out various iteration to make a patterns.

In gaming it will have an accessibility feature which will be visible, clear and audible.

SONA sand drawings

The art of creating drawing in sand which is a form of communication used which are often accompanied by storytelling, riddles or proverbs.[]

One of the properties of a Sona is that it could be symmetrical, asymmetrical or monlinear in shape. A perfect Sona is symmetrical which follows the rule of Geometry, in the line of symmetry.

An example of a Sona drawing without symmetry is the 'Leopard with cubs'

An example of a Sona drawing with symmetry is the 'Chased chicken'

In this paper we review similar systems where various traditional drawings are drawn that are in use ,so to better understand the current system and its limitation we need to critically examine them and make strategies or techniques to improve it.

  • Algorithmic models
  • Examine the results of the process
  • Categorise their structure
  • Use of fractals, L-system, Formal Language