In Day 1–1000, we comply with founders via the uncooked, unfiltered journey of company-building: the early scrambles, the quiet breakthroughs, the painful pivots, and the milestones that form what a enterprise turns into.
When Lagos-based soccer membership, Sporting Lagos launched its model new identification—jersey, typography, marketing campaign—the web exploded. Strangers tweeted: “I feel I’ve discovered my new membership.” Others requested, “The place can I purchase this jersey?”
I used to be decided to hunt out the designer or artistic studio that had made the membership jerseys a number of the most fascinating items of clothes in Lagos. For the primary time since I used to be born, I noticed Nigerians put on an area soccer jersey with satisfaction and magnificence. My quest led to Jordan Belonwu.
It didn’t shock me to study that his studio, Belonwus, was behind different excellent branding of a few of Nigeria’s outstanding tech startups, together with Zap by Paystack, Gray, JuicyWay and Cassava.
Belonwu is my visitor immediately on Day 1–1000. We spoke for almost two hours—the longest interview I’ve completed for this column—and the dialog felt like a masterclass on style, identification, and proving your self time and again. Throughout our dialog, Belonwu takes me from his Blackberry Messenger (BBM) emblem days to almost being fired by fintech firm, Bamboo, and working a studio that now chooses who to work with.
Act I — The making of style
“I feel I’ve been designing since I used to be an adolescent,” Belonwu says once I ask the place it began, a mixture of glad accidents. He grew up in Lagos, the kid of a high-quality artwork–appreciating mom. Of their dwelling was a laptop with illustration software program. “I used to be redrawing the Superman emblem on CorelDRAW earlier than I even knew what design was.” In secondary faculty, he tried science and failed almost each topic. “In some unspecified time in the future, I realised: I’m not a science scholar. I’m simply not.” He switched to arts and finally studied High-quality Artwork on the College of Benin.
However even there, he didn’t match neatly into the system. Whereas his friends painted or sculpted, Belonwu was already utilizing Illustrator and Photoshop, educating himself software program the division dismissed. “We had been informed to do assignments in CorelDRAW. I used to be utilizing Illustrator. And the lecturers hated that,” he says.
He clashed with academics. He fought for relevance in a system that prized hand-painted poster boards over digital precision. “You’d be requested to color a Shut-Up advert by hand. It wasn’t design schooling, it was nostalgia coaching.”
He by no means stopped designing, although. On BBM, he posted logos he had made for mates. Extra mates reached out: campus make-up artists, photographers, vogue entrepreneurs. Quickly everybody at school knew somebody who had a ‘Jordan emblem’. “I didn’t comprehend it was model identification on the time. I simply thought I used to be designing logos.”
What he had—even then—was style. “Due to my mum, and the artists she knew, I had early publicity to what nice artwork regarded like.” That early calibration of the attention, the sense of refinement nonetheless anchors his work immediately.
Act II — The battle for perception
After faculty, Belonwu didn’t spend every week job-hunting. He texted a designer buddy simply to say he was open to alternatives and bought referred to as within the subsequent day. He was employed instantly. He labored at CampSport, then freelanced, then bought pulled into an promoting company— Picture & Time—the place he lastly noticed what actual design groups regarded like. “It was the primary time I realised I wasn’t that good,” he tells me. “Everybody was sooner, sharper. That place taught me to work beneath strain.”
But it surely was his subsequent transfer that just about broke him. Two months right into a design position at Bamboo, his output nearly bought him fired. “I used to be designing a pitch deck for an investor,” he recollects. “It was horrible. Not ok. I hadn’t completed something that high-stakes earlier than.” The founder referred to as him in and confirmed him a greater deck: “This was completed by somebody we didn’t rent. And we employed you.”
He left that assembly not sure if he nonetheless had a job. Seeing as he wasn’t requested to depart, he launched a secret redemption plan which he referred to as “Venture 27.”
“I messaged everybody—Ope from Paystack, folks from Cowrywise, Fb. I requested for assist. I watched YouTube tutorials like my life trusted it.” For 2 months, he redesigned Bamboo’s branding at night time whereas doing his precise job throughout the day.
The work paid off. Bamboo stored him. Ultimately, they raised a spherical, expanded into Ghana, and gave him full artistic management. “I used to be artistic director. I used to be the photographer. I used to be managing decks for Helium Well being, designing Cash Africa’s visuals each morning, managing Bamboo’s social accounts, and hiring designers. It was insane.”
In 2021, after almost two years, Bamboo supplied him inventory choices and an even bigger position. He turned them down to start out his personal studio. “I didn’t need to be tied down,” he informed me. “I knew I wished to construct one thing of my very own.”
Days 1–100: Crafting tradition past the emblem
Belonwu didn’t stroll out into uncertainty. He had already constructed sufficient fame that tasks had been lining up. His first shopper got here earlier than the studio had a reputation. Taeillo, a furnishings firm, was first. Then cross-border remittance startup, JuicyWay, adopted shortly after.
He employed his first worker, Joseph, who had beforehand utilized for an internship at Bamboo however didn’t get in. One other worker, Mayowa, joined part-time then turned a full-time rent. There was no pitch deck. No org chart. The mannequin was easy: do the work; when it will get an excessive amount of, rent another person. The workforce grew one overwhelmed day at a time.
However the work was simple. Collection A startups began calling. Zap. Juicy Manner. Gray. Bamboo once more. And Lagos-based soccer membership, Sporting Lagos. One after the other, he turned the visible architect of Nigeria’s most design-forward startups.
Within the first few months, the studio moved quick. Belonwu and his lean workforce labored on model identities, merchandise design, and manufacturing design. Quickly, he started noticing a development: the manufacturers that reached out weren’t simply concerned with design, they wished distinctiveness. They wished branding technique. They wished to work with a studio that made them really feel totally different.
It was round this time the studio started defining values. What would they are saying sure to? Extra importantly, what would they are saying no to?
That reply confirmed up when two betting corporations reached out. Belonwu says he didn’t resolve alone. He requested his workforce. “I ran a ballot. I stated: “In case you had full autonomy, would you’re employed with a betting firm?” Just one individual stated sure. Everybody else stated no. The reply turned clear.
He tells me now, nearly casually: “Playing is simply too harmful to have nice identification.” That line stayed with me.
The make or break Sporting Lagos challenge
Certainly one of his most euphoric—and painful—tasks was Sporting Lagos. Halfway via the rebrand, the shopper nearly pulled the plug. “They stated they could persist with the outdated identification.”
Belonwu and his workforce had already labored on it for 5 months. “I wasn’t even occupied with the cash,” Jordan stated. “I simply couldn’t think about all this work—the element, the cultural nuance—not being seen.” He fought for it. He can’t even bear in mind precisely the way it bought resolved, however the challenge bought again on monitor. They resumed. And what got here out of that work modified every thing.
When Sporting Lagos lastly launched the brand new identification—jersey, typography, marketing campaign, every thing—the web exploded. Strangers tweeted: “I feel I’ve discovered my new membership.” Others requested, “The place can I purchase this jersey?”
Belonwu’s studio constructed every thing from scratch—the sample impressed by highway markings and Nigerian truck artwork. The hen motif on the away jersey symbolised migration—a metaphor for followers flocking to this new workforce.
“We put a lot into that identification,” he says, pulling up pictures of the moodboards, “the stitched sleeves, the customized typography. Seeing strangers put on it was the best validation.”
The jerseys offered out. The soccer membership’s social media followers jumped from 4,000 to 17,000. And Jordan, who fought to maintain the challenge alive, lastly bought to see his work on folks. “That’s once I knew. Individuals don’t simply need manufacturers. They need manufacturers that really feel like them,” he says.
The Sporting Lagos challenge would later earn Belonwu a referral for the Paystack challenge.
Day 1000
It’s been 4 years since Belonwu walked away from Bamboo and launched his eponymous studio. In the present day, the studio employs 12 folks. The workforce has branded a number of the most recognisable startups in Nigeria. They’ve made merch, rebranded apps, directed commercials, constructed units, designed exhibition items, and made followers fall in love with soccer jerseys.
“I don’t suppose we’ve got a mode,” he tells me. “Our model is: it should not appear like the very last thing we did.”
However the firm’s proudest shift is that they don’t chase shoppers anymore. Purchasers chase them. They don’t run advertisements. They don’t ship pitch decks. Each single shopper—from Zap to Gray to JuicyWay to Bamboo—has come via referrals. “It’s not about scale. We’re not making an attempt to be Uber. We’re making an attempt to be unforgettable,” he says.
If a startup doesn’t care about design, they politely say no. In the event that they don’t share values—like these betting corporations—they stroll away.
“Some folks don’t perceive design,” he stated. “And when you don’t, I can’t persuade you. Particularly once I comprehend it’ll value you cash.”
Current Day
At a chat final 12 months, Belonwu titled his keynote: “We’re Lastly Good Sufficient.” The identify got here from a second of vindication when design company, Wieden+Kennedy London rebranded Upwork utilizing a structure system almost equivalent to what his studio had constructed for Bamboo a 12 months earlier. “I don’t suppose they copied us. I feel we simply arrived on the similar reality,” he says.
That second satisfied him they had been now not “native” designers. They had been world in thought, execution, and ambition. They only occurred to be primarily based in Lagos.
After I ask if he looks like they’ve made it, he pauses then smiles. “We used to dream of world relevance. However now we all know: we’re already right here.”
I ask him what’s subsequent. An even bigger studio? World shoppers? A product line? He shrugs. “Truthfully, I simply need to hold proving that Nigerian design might be world-class and nonetheless be rooted in tradition.”
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