How I started my design career

Being the last born of a family of four with all my elder siblings studying professional courses, going creative was least expected of me. Now with over 2 years’ experience in brand and product design. How did I start my design career while studying mechanical engineering in the university?

Freshly after graduating from the secondary school while waiting for the admission list, I was fortunate to get a laptop from my brother who promised me earlier as a gift if my final result was good. I got some games installed on it and spent most of my time in front of the screen playing console games. I can finish a football season in a day, it was just me and I played in auto mode with the computer. I was damn good! (smiles)

I stumbled on CorelDraw one day while I was busy checking the softwares installed on the laptop. I didn’t really understand what it was used for so on getting admitted into Ekiti state university to study mechanical engineering, the average time used for games reduced drastically as I was busy struggling to make a 5.0 GPA the first semester. My laptop was occasionally seized due to excessive game time. With exams fast approaching, I spent less time with my laptop and I was also tired of playing the same game over again. After the first semester when the result came out, it was fair enough but not to what was expected of me. At least I didn’t have any carry over course.

Fast forward to my 200 level days when I started having close departmental friends, now that we only take faculty courses, unlike the general classes we had with other faculties during 100 level. I remember some student organization representatives come during our lectures inviting us to their programs. One of them is the Google Developers Group (GDG) now Developer Student Community (DSC). It was a three day code jam on android development so I decided to go for the program since most of my friends were attending. It was an amazing experience for me because I took it as an alternative to play games.

I started learning mobile app development on the android platform during the program. I was able to develop a small app after the program even though it’s still having errors till date. After the program, I continued learning but debugging was a big problem since I didn’t have an android phone to run my codes. It was during the blackberry era then and most times I had to borrow other peoples’ phone to debug the app only for it to crash again and it was really discouraging. One day I saw a friend of mine running some codes on his laptop browser and insisted he taught me how he did it, he introduced me to web design and development and since its browser-based I took it as an alternative to mobile app development since there was no need for external device to run my code then I started learning web design with HTML and CSS. It was not easy combining it with my academics as my grades were falling and subsequently my laptop was seized more times.

Despite all this, I continued to learn web design. I joined the google developer community fully as a volunteer and I assisted in organizing local events there on campus. I was not getting jobs as web designer, so learning looked boring and it affected my learning curve. Then we had a major event coming up late 2016. It was a big one, the biggest of its kind on campus, the Google DevFest. So as part of the plans to publicize the event, social media was used to get more people coming for the program. Even though the designs for the program was contracted out to other designers outside our school, we still needed some sort of reminder to send as broadcast to remind the students. So there was need for us to design e-flyer for it and since those in charge of the designs were not available. I volunteered to make a design for the program since I had prior knowledge to design. So I went back home and used CorelDraw to design the flyer for the program, it was a countdown design for the program. Fortunately the design was used and posted on social media account of the community and that was the starting point of my design career, though the design looks awkward anytime I look at it now. I started taking interest in design after the program and subsequently most of my friends requested me to help them with design, I started design unconsciously since I had more demands from people.

So I took up design and I was pretty lame as what I was doing because I didn’t have any training as to what design really is. I relied solely on my software for creativity. I started learning other design soft wares like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. But still my designs still looked somehow, it wasn’t like what the designers abroad did. I got a new phone and created an Instagram account, from there I was able to connect and learn from other designers around the world. YouTube was really helpful with tutorials too.

In early 2017 a friend of mine gave me a couple of videos from Treehouse, it had courses on design fundamentals, branding and logo design. Those videos actually changed my perspective toward design because unlike before I use to think design was more of the software I used but going through the material. I realized design should be more functional and users centered. So from the course I learnt about design elements and principles to guide my composition. I learnt that design is problem solving using design elements guided by principles together to create forms that function.

It was at that crucial point in my design career that I got to understand what design is all about and why our designs in this part of the world is a little bit different from what guys outside there do. I figured out we’ve spent most of our time with the software and tools which is actually wrong design is more of process, method and thinking. I continued learning on YouTube channels like The Futur, Roberto Blake, Flux and other prominent design professionals online. I started downloading their videos to watch and it helped improve my design skills greatly over time.

Late 2017 when I was doing my industrial training in Lagos, I saw an advert on Facebook Developer Group about a need for a UI/UX designer needed on a tea, during the Facebook Startup Discovery Challenge. Without prior knowledge to product design. I volunteered to join the team. The app was for contact sharing with an e-business card like feature. After meeting the team, I designed the logo and interface for the app, the developers couldn’t meet up with the deadline so we pitched the idea using the screens alone and fortunately we came second in the competition. After the event, the team leader for our team happened to be the CEO of a digital agency and he offered me job as the lead designer in his agency.

I was still doing my I.T then and I was already working (wawu!) with less than 2 years’ experience. I started working with the agency and worked on real client brief both local and international. I learnt how to work with time, meet deadline and digest briefs. I also got to work with another agency in Lagos before coming back to school. I took interest in UI/UX design and started learning more about it. Took some classes and got some new softwares for design. Then I started thinking, what if design will be a good choice for me since the demand was there and I find it more interesting and fulfilling for me. But I never planned to be one……..

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