# Ghanaian Funeral Poster & Banner

> The printed death announcements of southern Ghana, also found elsewhere in West Africa: colour posters, mostly A2, pasted on walls, trees, poles and vehicles, and by the mid-2010s large PVC banners hung at the family house. Laid out on computers by local designers and photographers, each sets the deceased's photograph under a stock headline that classes the death ('What a Shock', 'Home Call', 'Celebration of Life'), with the name, the age in a badge, the funeral programme and long ranked lists of children, relatives and chief mourners that display the family's standing.

- Period: 1990–present
- Where: Sub-Saharan Africa
- Origin: Southern Ghana, in Akan towns such as Konongo-Odumasi and Akyem Abodom, in Accra, and in Ewe towns of the Volta Region such as Peki, Sokpoe and Nyive. Bereaved families commission the designs from local graphic designers and photographers and have them printed in larger towns: for Peki, in Ho or in Accra, whose printing businesses are mostly Chinese-owned and cheaper. Adotey (2018) finds funeral posters in other regions of West Africa too, and among the Ewe a poster's list of chief mourners can reach across the border to Togo, as on a 2013 Nyive-Ghana poster whose list opens with two chiefs of Nyive-Togo. The start year is approximate: no source dates the poster's emergence. Bredenbröker (2024: 192) cites printed obituary pamphlets in Ghana from the late 1970s (Noll and Budniok 2017) and visual and written announcements of the deaths of prominent people from the 1930s (McCaskie 2006), and the lists of chief mourners in funeral brochures were already 'becoming long indeed' in 1987, as Ebow Daniel wrote in West Africa (quoted in Adotey 2018: 64). The sources consulted document posters from 2009 and banners from 2016, and Bredenbröker describes the banners as a development of the posters
- Branch: Traditions & vernacular
- Also known as: Ghanaian obituary posters, Death-announcement posters, Funeral posters, Funeral banners, Obituary banners
- Page: https://stylogeny.com/styles/ghanaian-funeral-poster/

## Use it with care

These posters and banners show real, recently dead people and name their living relatives, and families pay for them as part of a funeral the community judges closely. Funeral posters are usually made for Christians and followers of traditional African religions (Adotey 2018), so do not present them as the funeral custom of all Ghanaians. Do not lift a real poster's photograph, names or lists into new work, and do not use the headlines and colour code as a gag or a generic 'African' texture: 'What a Shock' and a red ground mark a death as sudden or untimely, and relatives often find a banner on their own house painful to live with. The ranked lists of chief mourners can also carry live disputes over kinship and chieftaincy, as when the Tefle Traditional Council formally protested in 2009 against its omission from the poster of a Sokpoe paramount chief. Commission and credit Ghanaian designers and print shops for work in this idiom.

## How it works

- Head the sheet with a stock phrase that classes the death, or with the plain 'Obituary': 'What a Shock', 'Gone too Soon', 'Rapid Departure' or 'Crash Landing' for someone cut down in their prime, 'Home Call' or 'Call to Glory' for the elderly, 'Celebration of Life' or 'A Life Well Lived' for an adult who led a successful life. Families apply the scheme loosely, as in a 'Home Call' for a man of 52 whose poster announces his 'sudden death'.
- Make the deceased's photograph the picture: an ID-card, birthday or family photograph, often cut out and set against a colour field, a glow, a sky or a stock interior, with a smaller inset of the person as a young adult or in the uniform of their working life.
- State the dress code, which follows the death: black for mourning, red for a young person, white or black-and-white for an elderly one, with the attire for each day of the funeral; the ground can echo it, as in a red 'What a Shock' banner for a man who died at 47, though white, cream and royal-blue grounds are as common.
- Set the name large in mixed faces, often a script first name or title over a heavy surname in capitals, with the nickname ('a.k.a.') beneath, and put the age in a roundel or badge ('Aged: 52', '77 YEARS') beside the dates of birth and death, sometimes given as 'Sunrise' and 'Sunset'.
- On the poster, fill the rest with layered small text: who announces the death, the funeral programme in order (lying in state, burial, final funeral rites, thanksgiving service, often 'There will be no wake-keeping'), and ranked lists of the children with their professions and towns, relatives abroad and chief mourners, closing with 'All Friends and Sympathisers Are Cordially Invited'; on the banner, drop the lists and keep only headline, photograph, name and age.
- Print it to stay up in public: self-adhesive colour posters pasted on walls, trees, electricity poles and vehicles beside political and religious posters, and banners of A0 or larger on thick PVC hung on the family house or on sticks by the road and used in the funeral itself.

## Its design choices

Defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

### Layout & composition
- [Central symmetry](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/central-symmetry/) (characteristic)
- [Dynamic asymmetry](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/dynamic-asymmetry/) (characteristic)
- [Isolated object](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/isolated-object/) (characteristic)
- [Framed panels](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/framed-panels/) (characteristic)
- [Column grid](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/column-grid/) (occasional)

### Space & hierarchy
- [Single focal point](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/single-focal-point/) (defining)
- [Layered information](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/layered-information/) (defining)
- [Extreme scale contrast](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/extreme-scale-contrast/) (characteristic)
- [Horror vacui](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/horror-vacui/) (characteristic)
- [Illusion of depth](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/illusion-of-depth/) (occasional)

### Typography
- [Eclectic mixing](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/eclectic-mixing/) (defining)
- [All caps](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/all-caps/) (characteristic)
- [Script](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/script/) (characteristic)
- [Grotesque & neo-grotesque](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/grotesque-and-neo-grotesque/) (characteristic)
- [Ornamented display](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/ornamented-display/) (occasional)

### Colour
- [Light ground](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/light-ground/) (characteristic)
- [Dark ground](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/dark-ground/) (characteristic)
- [Flat fields](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/flat-fields/) (characteristic)
- [Gradients](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/gradients/) (characteristic)
- [Jewel & metallic](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/jewel-and-metallic/) (occasional)
- [Full polychrome](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/full-polychrome/) (occasional)

### Form & shape
- [Naturalistic depiction](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/naturalistic-depiction/) (characteristic)
- [Geometric primitives](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/geometric-primitives/) (occasional)

### Surface & texture
- [Hard offset shadow](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/hard-offset-shadow/) (characteristic)
- [Flat](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/flat/) (occasional)

### Ornament
- [Restrained accents](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/restrained-accents/) (characteristic)
- [Borders & frames](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/borders-and-frames/) (characteristic)
- [Emblems & badges](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/emblems-and-badges/) (characteristic)
- [Rules & bars](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/rules-and-bars/) (characteristic)

### Imagery
- [Straight photography](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/straight-photography/) (defining)
- [Photomontage](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/photomontage/) (characteristic)
- [Treated photography](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/treated-photography/) (characteristic)
- [Found & vernacular imagery](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/found-and-vernacular-imagery/) (occasional)

### Medium & production
- [Desktop publishing](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/desktop-publishing/) (defining)
- [Architecture & signage](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/architecture-and-signage/) (characteristic)

### Tone & intent
- [Communal & popular](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/communal-and-popular/) (defining)
- [Spiritual & sacred](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/spiritual-and-sacred/) (characteristic)
- [Authoritative & institutional](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/authoritative-and-institutional/) (occasional)
- [Luxurious & glamorous](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/luxurious-and-glamorous/) (occasional)

Avoids: Typography only, Hand-painted, Non-representational, Ornament-free, Generous white space, Agitational & persuasive, Ironic & self-aware, Rebellious & subversive, Playful & witty

Palette: #f6f4ef, #151515, #c3161c, #d4a52a, #1d3f94

Typefaces: Stock headline phrases ('Celebration Of Life', 'What a Shock', 'Home Call') in serif or sans-serif display, often outlined in white or set on a coloured band, from a red serif in upper and lower case ('Celebration Of Life') to light capitals on a black band ('HOME CALL'), Connected script for first names and titles (a first name or a title with initials) over the surname in heavy sans-serif capitals, often outlined and set in white, red, navy or yellow, Small, tightly set sans-serif text for the funeral arrangements and the lists of children, relatives and chief mourners, with run-in capital headings such as 'CHILDREN:', 'CHIEF MOURNERS' and 'FINAL FUNERAL ARRANGEMENTS ARE AS FOLLOWS'

Known for: 'Celebration Of Life' poster for a woman aged 77, with the burial service and funeral rites in March 2019 at Konongo-Odumasi: her portrait fills the left half, with a round inset photograph, a red bar announcing the 'Final funeral arrangements', a yellow '77 YEARS' badge and the attire for each day (Saturday black, Sunday black and white); photographed by Joseph Oduro-Frimpong (Forward, Upward, Onward?, 2020, Appendix I); 'Home Call' poster for a man aged 52 who died suddenly in Accra in 2017: a black upper band with the headline in light capitals and a script first name over a sans-serif surname, a sepia cut-out photograph of him in military uniform with a rifle, and a gold-ringed 'Aged: 52' roundel (Oduro-Frimpong 2020, Appendix II); 'Honouring His Life: In the hope of the Resurrection' poster for a Presbyterian funeral at Akyem Abodom in June 2010: blue bands at top and bottom, a cut-out portrait of the deceased in a striped cloth set against a sky, and a cream column with 'Sunrise' and 'Sunset' dates, the funeral arrangements ('There will be no wake') and his children's names with their jobs and towns (Oduro-Frimpong 2020, Appendices III and IV); Two funeral banners photographed by Isabel Bredenbröker in Peki in late 2016 and captioned as banners for a 'good' and a 'bad' death: a 'Celebration Of Life' banner for a man aged 93 (1923–2016), with a blue-tinted portrait and a smaller photograph of him in a cap and bow tie against a white glow on blue inside a multicoloured strip border, and a red 'What a Shock' banner for a man aged 47 with an 'Aged 47 yrs' roundel and a small full-length inset (Rest in Plastic, 2024, figs 2.1 and 2.2); Funeral poster of an asafohene of Nyive-Ghana (2013), with an inset of him in police uniform at bottom right, recalling his career as a police officer, and a list of chief mourners whose order sets out the relationship between the Nyive stools in Ghana and Togo (Edem Adotey, History in Africa, 2018, photo 2); Two landscape posters pasted on a blue wooden stall in Peki in 2016, between a Star beer advertisement and an election campaign poster, above eggs and bread for sale: a white 'Celebration of Life' with the headline in red capitals, the name reversed out of a red bar, a cut-out portrait of a woman of 86 in a white headwrap and dress and her age in a roundel wreathed with pink and purple flowers; and a pink and purple 'Call to Glory' with a portrait in a patterned headscarf, the name in heavy red capitals over an 'a.k.a.' line and a purple bar along the foot inviting all friends and sympathisers (Bredenbröker, Rest in Plastic, 2024, fig. 0.1)

## Where it comes from, and what it’s close to

- Alike in its design choices: [Nigerian Pentecostal Crusade Poster & Billboard](https://stylogeny.com/styles/pentecostal-crusade-poster.md) (1990–present), 74% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Tamil Nadu Flex Banners](https://stylogeny.com/styles/tamil-flex-banner.md) (2000–present), 72% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Giallo Mondadori Covers (I Libri Gialli)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/giallo-mondadori.md) (1929–present), 60% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Nollywood Video Jacket & Film Poster](https://stylogeny.com/styles/nollywood-video-sleeve.md) (1992–present), 58% alike
- Alike in its design choices: ['Good Morning' Greeting Images (WhatsApp Forward Vernacular)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/good-morning-greeting-image.md) (2013–present), 54% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Spanish Bullfight Poster (Cartel Taurino)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/cartel-taurino.md) (1879–present), 49% alike

## Sources

- Joseph Oduro-Frimpong, '"What a shock!": On mediated narratives of achievement in popular Ghanaian death-announcement posters', in Eva Ulrike Pirker, Katja Hericks and Mandisa M. Mbali (eds), Forward, Upward, Onward? Narratives of Achievement in African and Afroeuropean Contexts (Düsseldorf: hhu.books, 2020), pp. 26–31, DOI 10.25838/hhubooks.21.34, CC BY 4.0 (headlines 'What a Shock', 'Celebration of Life', 'Home Call', 'Honoring His Life'; the partner named only if the union was formally recognised by customary marriage or church wedding; the children's positions and prestigious places of residence listed; a 'Home Call' poster for a man of 52 announcing his 'sudden death'; the closing line 'All Friends and Sympathisers Are Cordially Invited'; four poster photographs by the author in Appendices I–IV): https://books.ub.uni-duesseldorf.de/index.php/hhu_books/catalog/book/21
- Edem Adotey, 'Where is My Name? Contemporary Funeral Posters as an Arena of Contestation and (Re)negotiation of Chiefly Relations Among the Ewe of Ghana and Togo', History in Africa 45 (2018): 59–69, DOI 10.1017/hia.2018.4 (funeral posters part of funerary ritual 'in Ghana and other regions of West Africa'; usually for Christians and adherents of traditional African religions, p. 62 n. 10; posters mostly printed in colour on A2 sheets; posted on walls, trees, electricity poles and motor vehicles, hence 'Post no Bills' notices; a heading, one or more photographs, age and date of death, chief mourners, family, funeral arrangements and a dress code of red, black, white, black and white, or red and black reflecting the age and status of the deceased; black the usual funeral colour, red for a young person, white or black and white for the elderly; headlines 'Rapid Departure', 'Crash Landing', 'What a Shock', 'Gone too Soon' for someone cut down in his or her prime, 'Home Call' and 'Call to Glory' for the elderly, 'Celebration of Life' and 'A Life Well Lived' for an adult who led a successful life, besides the standard 'Obituary'; a bigger recent photograph and a smaller youthful inset; chief mourners listed hierarchically, relatives abroad named first; Ebow Daniel's 1987 West Africa piece on long chief-mourner lists in funeral brochures, p. 64; posters also inserted directly on Facebook and WhatsApp; the Sokpoe poster of 2009 and the Nyive-Ghana poster of 2013): https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/00738FA3BBB1C8435694A26558ABE750/core-reader; open full text: https://ugspace.ug.edu.gh/items/06a64fff-0045-41ff-916a-4a80030ebad0
- Isabel Bredenbröker, Rest in Plastic: Death, Time and Synthetic Materials in a Ghanaian Ewe Community (New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 2024), Material Mediations 14, DOI 10.3167/9781805395034, open access CC BY 4.0, esp. pp. 11, 68–72 and 191–95 (banners large-scale images colour-printed on PVC and smaller self-adhesive posters plastering the town's walls; banners categorise a death by headlines such as 'Celebration of life' and 'Call to glory' or 'What a shock' and 'Gone too soon'; posters printed in colour on self-adhesive foil list the deceased's picture and name, a long list of family and mourners, and the funeral arrangements, and mostly include 'There will be no wake-keeping'; commemorative T-shirts, mugs, 'hankies' and keyholders alongside them; banners a development of the obituary posters, A0 or bigger on thick PVC, relying on one or two photographs; obituary pamphlets dated to the late 1970s (Noll and Budniok 2017) and visual and written death announcements of prominent people to the 1930s (McCaskie 2006); a heading, a title such as 'Home Call' or 'Glorious Exit', a portrait or full-body photograph, a background of stock imagery such as a Western-style interior or of subtle colour schemes and patterns, the name and age, and a smaller framed image showing the deceased young; local photographers act as banner designers; ID-card and birthday photos scanned and printed at large scale; no colour printer for banners in Peki, which are printed in Ho or Accra, where most print shops are Chinese-owned; banners hung on house walls, trees, signposts, sticks, car back windows and graves; figures 0.1 and 2.1–2.2 photographed in Peki in 2016, fig. 0.1 showing posters among campaign posters and commercial ads beside a stall selling eggs and bread): https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/BredenbrokerRest
- Isabel Bredenbröker, 'Advertising the ancestors: Ghanaian "funeral banners" as material images', paper in panel P052b, EASA 2022, Belfast, 29 July 2022 (obituary banners a commemorative format that has become widely popular in the Ghanaian south in the past couple of years; fieldwork in an Ewe town): https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/easa2022/paper/64408
- Bristol Museums, 'Mourning outfit', made in Ghana (2013) (white cloth with a dark blue or black pattern worn for the funeral of someone who lived a long and healthy life; red or black, the colours of mourning, for other funerals, for example where someone has died young): https://museums.bristol.gov.uk/narratives.php?irn=13454

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