Katie de Klee

Freelance writer and copy-writer

United Kingdom

Two homes. One north, one south. Many interests. Scattered. Particular experience in covering creativity, culture and design in Africa and other emerging economies.

Journalist, editor, copywriter, thinker, talker, doer. Jack.

Portfolio
CLUSTER London
ADORNMENT & CLUSTER DIGITAL RESIDENCY JEWELLERY 2020 - CLUSTER London

For the next four weeks, the Cluster Jewellery Instagram handle will be curated by the Portugal-based platform A/dornment. Founded by curator Ilaria Ruggiero, the A/dorment platform collaborates with publications, platforms and physical galleries to propose a new way of seeing contemporary ornaments.

CLUSTER London
ADORNO ARTICLE CLUSTER CRAFTS LCW 2020 - CLUSTER London

Hosted by the digital gallery Adorno, Virtual Design Destination will present over 100 works by artists from 14 European countries. The impressively diverse online programme will rotate work by two different designers from different parts of the world every day of the 7-day London Design Festival, 2020.

CLUSTER London
LDF LANDMARK STUDIO WEAVE HOTHOUSE ARTICLE CLUSTER CRAFTS 2020 - CLUSTER London

In a year of otherwise cancelled design events, London Design Festival went ahead across various venues in the UK's capital in mid-September. Every year as part of the Landmark Projects, which began in 2007, one leading artist or designer creates a major installation in a prominent public space in London.

CLUSTER London
FOCUS ON WOOD CLUSTER CRAFTS ARTICLE 2020 - CLUSTER London

Martin works almost exclusively with maple and walnut, both available hardwoods available to him locally. They are dense and carve beautifully, holding subtle details and shape well. "Walnut is dark and rich, which compliments my more organic weighty forms, while maple is soft and light, which I find works well for my forms with clean, minimalist lines," he says.

Design Indaba
07/26/2017
Meet South Africa's Spinach King | Design Indaba

South African social entrepreneur Lufefe Nomjana has built his spinach empire (Espinaca Innovations) from incredibly humble beginnings. In 2011 with just 40 rand and some spinach leaves from a community garden where he was volunteering, Nomjana made his first spinach-infused loaves from his neighbour's oven.

nataal.com
KiVU

Photography Viviane Sassen

Design Indaba
07/12/2017
Journal Rappe: Rappers and politics in Senegal | Design Indaba

Senegalese hip-hop duo Journal Rappé have found a way to make young people engage with the news by rapping weekly roundups that are humorous, totally subjective and often a little impertinent. Keyti and Xuman, two of the country's most popular rappers, launched Journal Rappé in 2013. Their short TV programme covers the weekly news.

Design Indaba
09/21/2017
Africa Rising: A book that celebrates creativity across the continent | Design Indaba

Africa Rising, a new book co-edited by Design Indaba and Gestalten, takes the pulse of creativity Africa - where design, although still a young industry, is thriving. The African artistic spirit extends far beyond the canvas and studio; a new wave of African creatives is on the rise and making a name for itself in design, fashion, photography, and architecture across Africa and abroad.

Design Indaba
07/28/2017
Kate Moross: How to make mess look good | Design Indaba

Kate Moross is a bit of a punk graphic designer. And not just because of her coloured hair. She's known for her free and fast approach and for creating technicoloured, energetic work that has a certain sense of chaos.

Design Indaba
07/12/2017
Ibaaku: Creating unique African beats | Design Indaba

Senegalese music producer Ibaaku has created a whole new genre of music, which he calls "Afro-hypnotique experimental". Like many of his contemporaries on the creative scene in Dakar, Ibaaku often talks about how the city - and its young, creative community - have influenced him.

Design Indaba
09/21/2017
The Shit Museum sells you crap | Design Indaba

Meet Merdacotta, terracotta's (shitty) little brother, made by the Museo Della Merda (The Shit Museum), a museum on a dairy farm in northern Italy that is dedicated to the eco-friendly artistic and scientific possibilities of recycled dung. Merdacotta is a terracotta-like material that can be used as a building material, in tiles, tableware, flower pots and more.

Design Indaba
08/02/2017
Alexa Pollmann: Design, migration and a future form of statehood | Design Indaba

In the current political climate, we're seeing an increasing paranoia regarding closed borders and immigration being fostered. The amount of visible proponents of nationalism is also on the rise, reinforcing anti-immigrant attitudes. The work of designer Alexa Pollmann challenges this and begs us to consider a different version of statehood.

nataal.com
01/03/2017
26' 10

Words Katie de Klee

Design Indaba
09/21/2017
(P)residant: Those who don't let go of power | Design Indaba

Senegal-based Beninese photographer Fabrice Monteiro creates striking image series that reflect the baser sides of humanity. From terrifying visions of a world choked by garbage, to highly stylised and surreal portraits that address social issues such as slavery and genocide, Monteiro's work is not shy of challenging topics.

Design Indaba
08/01/2017
Sleeping with Snøhetta under the Scandinavian sky | Design Indaba

In the many international offices of Snøhetta, an architecture and landscape design studio founded in 1989 by Craig Dykers and Kjetil Thorsen, ideas and inspiration move smoothly and continuously between the imagined, analogue and the digital world.

Design Indaba
09/21/2017
(P)residant: Those who don't let go of power | Design Indaba

Senegal-based Beninese photographer Fabrice Monteiro creates striking image series that reflect the baser sides of humanity. From terrifying visions of a world choked by garbage, to highly stylised and surreal portraits that address social issues such as slavery and genocide, Monteiro's work is not shy of challenging topics.

Design Indaba
12/12/2016
Naresh Ramchandani: The power and grace of words | Design Indaba

"I think words have a lot of power," says Naresh Ramchandani, communications and advertising partner at Pentagram's London offices and wordsmith extraordinaire. Ramchandani believes that advertising - which is so often an unwanted intervention - has to be disruptive and attractive in order to get anyone's attention.

Design Indaba
07/26/2017
Meet South Africa's Spinach King | Design Indaba

South African social entrepreneur Lufefe Nomjana has built his spinach empire (Espinaca Innovations) from incredibly humble beginnings. In 2011 with just 40 rand and some spinach leaves from a community garden where he was volunteering, Nomjana made his first spinach-infused loaves from his neighbour's oven.

Design Indaba
09/21/2017
StelooLive: An experimental, electronic soundscape in Accra | Design Indaba

The above clip is from the first-ever concert in the city of Accra curated by celebrated Ghanaian artist Nana Anoff and fashion Dj Steloo. Steloolive (Steloo's performance name) staged a live set and sound-art performance to a few selected people and asked that everyone put away their phones to fully immerse themselves in the immediacy of the experience.

Design Indaba
08/03/2017
The Zulu alphabet in 25 lino prints | Design Indaba

Soweto-born illustrator and author Siya Masuku has a creative approach to personal upliftment and education in his country. In 2015, inspired by a casual conversation he had with his mother on the lack of books at the primary school where she was teaching, Masuku decided to make an illustrated alphabet book to help children learn isiZulu at primary level.

Design Indaba
07/28/2017
Kate Moross: How to make mess look good | Design Indaba

Kate Moross is a bit of a punk graphic designer. And not just because of her coloured hair. She's known for her free and fast approach and for creating technicoloured, energetic work that has a certain sense of chaos.

Design Indaba
08/03/2017
The Zulu alphabet in 25 lino prints | Design Indaba

Soweto-born illustrator and author Siya Masuku has a creative approach to personal upliftment and education in his country. In 2015, inspired by a casual conversation he had with his mother on the lack of books at the primary school where she was teaching, Masuku decided to make an illustrated alphabet book to help children learn isiZulu at primary level.

Design Indaba
08/04/2017
Senegalese sneakers by Nio Far | Design Indaba

Nnema is the latest range by Senegalese shoe brand Nio Far. Created by young local designer Milcos Badji, the sneakers are all handmade with traditional mudcloth. As well as being ultra trendy, the patterns in the material tell their own particular tales.

nataal.com
01/03/2017
26' 10

Words Katie de Klee

Design Indaba
08/02/2017
Doubt is a creative catalyst: We grow because we doubt | Design Indaba

TL Uglow ("Tea", like the drink) is the creative director of Google's Creative Lab in Sydney. She works with cultural and creative organisations around the world exploring the space between technology and the arts and what can happen where they intersect. In May 2016 she spoke at the Sydney Writers Festival on doubt as a creative catalyst.

Design Indaba
08/03/2017
Intimate Strangers: When the madam is away, the help will slay | Design Indaba

Soweto-based creative Puleng Mongale has just released the first of an ongoing photographic series titled Intimate Strangers. Without revealing too much of what is to come in the next two parts, Mongale explains that Part 1, When the madam is away, the help will slay, can be seen as a social commentary on labour relationships in South Africa.

Design Indaba
09/21/2017
Open source wheelchair for developing countries | Design Indaba

The SafariSeat is a groundbreaking all terrain wheelchair designed specially for people in developing countries. In East Africa alone, one in every 200 people is in need of a wheelchair and struggles to fulfil their everyday needs. But the wheelchairs we recognise in more developed parts of the world are not suitable for those living in rural communities.

Gestalten
Meet Katie de Klee : The Editor-in-Chief of Design Indaba Spoke with Us ahead of the Release of...

As editor in chief of Design Indaba's editorial platform, Katie de Klee is a critical agent in making sure that stories from around Africa get the airtime that they deserve. She focuses on creative problem solving around the world and spotlights designers, photographers, and artists using their work to create a better world within the fiscal, social, and material constraints placed upon them.

Design Indaba
08/04/2017
Fashion is sustainable when it's DIY | Design Indaba

Dutch designer Vera de Pont is studying a master's in future fashion and her work spans both fantasy and reality. At Design Indaba Conference 2016 she shared a project where she created a cut-out coat that the buyer could buy and then create at home themselves without the need for any sewing.

Design Indaba
09/21/2017
Rich Mnisi: Fashion forward design | Design Indaba

Johannesburg-based fashion designer and Design Indaba Emerging Creative in 2015, Rich Mnisi launched his own brand (initially under the name Oath, and since rebranded as his eponymous label RICH MNISI) in 2014.

Design Indaba
08/04/2017
Trauma and the europlasticity of the human brain with Naama Schendar | Design Indaba

A recent graduate from the design interactions course at the Royal College of Art in London, multidisciplinary artist Naama Schendar looked into the effects of trauma in her thesis project Your Beautiful Self. "I got interested in trauma because I got really interested in how trauma had affected my life," explains Schendar, who was born in Israel.

Design Indaba
09/21/2017
StelooLive: An experimental, electronic soundscape in Accra | Design Indaba

The above clip is from the first-ever concert in the city of Accra curated by celebrated Ghanaian artist Nana Anoff and fashion Dj Steloo. Steloolive (Steloo's performance name) staged a live set and sound-art performance to a few selected people and asked that everyone put away their phones to fully immerse themselves in the immediacy of the experience.

Design Indaba
07/19/2017
Future technologies: Ideas that are changing our world | Design Indaba

We all know the future is digital. Coders are the wizards of today, shaping and manipulating matter. From augmented objects, the Internet of things, wearables that feedback body metrics to our devices and data so big that we're lost in the magnitude of its very existence. It's a new universe we're discovering.

Design Indaba
09/21/2017
Jonathan Dotse: Virtual reality in Accra | Design Indaba

Jonathan Dotse is a Ghanaian science-fiction writer and Afrofuturist. As well as creating the first ever African VR experience, Dotse also runs the Afro Cyber Punk blog where he discusses the future of Africa and how new technologies will affect the continent.

Design Indaba
09/21/2017
(P)residant: Those who don't let go of power | Design Indaba

Senegal-based Beninese photographer Fabrice Monteiro creates striking image series that reflect the baser sides of humanity. From terrifying visions of a world choked by garbage, to highly stylised and surreal portraits that address social issues such as slavery and genocide, Monteiro's work is not shy of challenging topics.

Design Indaba
08/04/2017
Edward Sempa: Ethical, local fashion in Kampala | Design Indaba

Edward Sempa designs clothing for women under his own brand Catherine & Sons, all produced locally in Kampala, Uganda. The workshop production is all up to international ethical standards, creating sustainable jobs based on local skills and supply chains.

Lifestyle-capetown
02/18/2014
African Dreamscapes

'Small clay animals can be seen leaping and crawling in fantastic 3D shapes all over the colourful bowls and jugs.' Мастерская "Ardmore Ceramic Art Studio" возникла в результате небольшого сотрудничества двух южноафриканских мастеров у подножья Драконовых гор (Drakensberg Mountains) в провинции Ква-Зулу Натал (Kwa-Zulu Natal)Основатели мастерской Фе Халстед (Fée Halsted) и Бонни Нтшалинтшали (Bonnie Ntshalintshali) начали свой совместный креативный путь в 1985 году, и с тех пор "Ardmore"...

Dailymaverick
11/13/2013
The elephant emergency: Summit to be held in Botswana

President Ian Khama of Botswana will open the summit, and Heads of State and representatives of African elephant range countries will be in attendance, along with high-level representatives from transit and destination countries. The summit will aim to address the following topics: penalties for ivory trading, law enforcement, population monitoring and public awareness.

Mahala
The Busking Protest

by Katie de Klee / 11.07.2013 To begin with the crowd was small, a few curious people who were drawn in by the music and the modest circle, drawn in closer by the cameras that had appeared and the placards on the wall. Maybe 50 people were there when the talking started.

Citypress
11/24/2012
Is your snoek really a snoek? - City Press

Although snoek - a fish caught in the Western Cape's cold waters - is one of the province's most well-known delicacies, more than half this fish found in some retail chains in Cape Town are imported from New Zealand. Snoek and New Zealand Barracouta are the same species, but the label "snoek" gives the impression the fish is locally caught.

Thenewage
Cape family unwittingly part of US scam

Katie de Klee An elaborate 11-year-long web of deceit spun by a young American woman posing as a man with a cancer-afflicted child was uncovered this month, and a Capetonian blogger was shocked to discover she had unwittingly been used to further the hoax.

Mahala
In Search of Iron | Mahala

by Katie de Klee / 26.12.2013 Originally published 25 February 2013. Life in Cape Town can trick you into thinking the world is small.

Mahala
Dead and Breakfast

by Katie de Klee / Illustration by Sasan / 28.11.2012 Last Friday I slept next to a murderer. Since arriving in Cape Town I have been reluctant to be tourist. I am a tourist, I am in this city as a foreigner, and I am here - in part - for pleasure.

Mahala
Listening with My Eyes | Mahala

by Katie de Klee / Images by Le Poulailler / 22.05.2013 All the cars had parked along the pavements, so the people (unable to move between the wing mirrors and the walls) had all taken to walking in the streets. They moved like rivers, sweeping up drifters and carrying them along.

Citypress
11/17/2012
Superguards protect farms - City Press

Farm workers say they were made to join protest Farmers in the Ceres area hired private security companies this week to guard equipment and provide back-up for a police force stretched dangerously thin by explosive protests across the Western Cape. But these weren't run-of-the-mill security guards - they were paramilitary operatives specially trained in handling strike action.

Compassandrose
About - Compass & Rose

Gabrielle has a unique take on interiors, a passion for style and a discerning eye for design. Her involvement with developing design concepts and handling the project management ensures a clear understanding and communication with the client as well as the professional delivery of Compass and Rose designs.

Mahala
Cooking for Your Fans | Mahala

by Katie de Klee / Images by Alistair Barnes / 24.10.2013 Now here's how to sell an album. You seduce your potential listener, you treat them like you're on a damn hot date and you cook them the best fucking three course meal you know how to.

Babygroup
9 to 10 weeks old

Changes this week: Your baby's movements get more coordinated. Sleeping for longer stretches at a time. Trimming your baby's nails. You've got a little mimic. Keep the camera handy! How your newborn is developing: As your baby's brain develops, their coordination gets better.

Lifestyle-capetown
02/17/2014
With Love From The Karoo

'The shell lends its gorgeous ivory tones to designs that embrace the ancient aesthetic of the Karoo and marry it to an essential modern look.' "Avoova" - это ассортимент изысканных дизайнерских изделий из яичной скорлупы южноафриканского страуса, форма редкого функционального искусства, которая стала одним из самых изумительных и роскошных южноафриканских продуктов.

Londondance
Rosemary Lee in Square Dances at Squares - LondonDance

Review: Saturday afternoon. The squares of London are shared spaces where strangers come together. Some come to meet, but though there is no expectation of privacy, some seek peace and escape. Today there was something happening. The afternoon was grey and breezy, the world had remembered that it was October and the wind had picked up the smell of the leaves.

Lady
My search for good fortune

I am addicted to my horoscope. I read it almost daily, impose meanings on the mundane where they seem to fit, and discard what I don't feel (or want) to be relevant. I'd say that I'm pretty grounded - and I think of it as a harmless sort of hobby.

Lady
The Daily: December 13

Submariner is jailed for trying to give information to the Russians Royal Navy submariner Edward Devenney has been jailed for eight years by a judge at the Old Bailey for trying to leak compromising information to agents he thought were Russian.

Ballo
The B-SIDE

One of our newest editions to the range is the flat top B-Side, cutting straight across the brow with some old school attitude. It's our modern take on a retro style. Available with the natural wooden hues, or with a two-tone colour finish, the B-Side is a champ.

Westcapenews
10/16/2014
Bushmen trackers flown in to help search for missing camper

05.11.2012 Bushmen from Botswana were flying to Cape Town today to join the search for 23-year-old Robert Barclay who went missing in Bainskloof on Saturday evening. The ace trackers are joining a search and rescue squad comprised of EMS rescuers, Wilderness Search and Rescue volunteers, Cape Nature, family and friends, while the Air Mercy Service [...]

Mahala
The Real John Wizards

by Katie de Klee / 02.09.2013 For a moment he stopped talking, smiled and sighed. "You know, I think I'm getting better at this," he said. "I've done quite a lot of interviews recently and I think I'm getting the hang of it."

Westcapenews
10/16/2014
Gugulethu arts experience

25.11.12 This weekend over 20 homes in Gugulethu opened their doors to the public and became gallery spaces, other homes prepared and shared out food for free to the visitors, there was dancing in the streets and live mural painting by renowned Cape Town street artists.

Westcapenews
10/16/2014
When the threads are fraying

25.10.12 Time is a great healer, unless the sickness is age. And some wounds will bleed even through their stitches. The English version of Rachelle Greeff's hit play Die Naaimasjien has returned to Cape Town and is now showing at the Baxter Theatre after sell out performances at the Edinburgh Festival this August.

Thenewage
Hiker's body found in gorge

Katie de Klee After two full days of searching, the body of the missing 23-year-old hiker Robert Barclay was found yesterday morning at the bottom of a gorge in Bainskloof. Barclay, a Botswana national, was last seen by friends with whom he was camping at Eerste Tol in Bainskloof at around 6pm Saturday when he set off for a short walk.

Mahala
A Seedy Little Venture

by Katie de Klee / 30.04.2013 There's one organisation that has been popping up all over Cape Town for the last couple of years. Greenpop (making GREENing POPular) have managed to use every possible tree related pun in their campaigns.

Issuu
360 perspectives

In reflecting on 2012 it is evident that the University of the Western Cape (UWC) continues to make positive strides in strengthening its position as a prominent university making a significant contribution to the intellectual, social and economic life of our nation.

Issuu
360 perspectives

In reflecting on 2012 it is evident that the University of the Western Cape (UWC) continues to make positive strides in strengthening its position as a prominent university making a significant contribution to the intellectual, social and economic life of our nation.

Gestalten
Meet Katie de Klee : The Editor-in-Chief of Design Indaba Spoke with Us ahead of the Release of...

As editor in chief of Design Indaba's editorial platform, Katie de Klee is a critical agent in making sure that stories from around Africa get the airtime that they deserve. She focuses on creative problem solving around the world and spotlights designers, photographers, and artists using their work to create a better world within the fiscal, social, and material constraints placed upon them.