A Lot Can Happen in A Year
Disclaimer, this is my first article and well I hope you enjoy my story.
In 2020, I was just a final year chemical engineering student of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri in Imo state, Nigeria. I had no plans for my life than the regular after graduation from college, I’ll get to do my NYSC, find a job and get a M.Sc in a field I was yet to decide on.
The Covid-19 pandemic outbreak happened and in March 2020, Universities in Nigeria closed and asked the students to return to their homes and well I stayed back in school for some weeks as I didn’t want to go home so early. I mean why go home early when I wouldn’t have anything to do.
I finally went home on the 26th of March 2020 only because the Executive Governor of Rivers state said he would lock the borders of the state on that day and if I didn’t go home then, I wouldn’t be able to and most especially my friends all planned to go home on that same day so I wouldn’t have any company in school if I had agreed to stay behind.
I went home and started this reading thing where I disciplined myself to read at least a page of a book daily on my phone. I downloaded the SCRIBD app where I downloaded books which included audio books as well. I listened to the audio books and read the rest. The books included; rich dad poor dad, fervent, the alchemist, the things positive minded people do, the art of communication, etc.
On the 16th of April, we were robbed and our phones were stolen. I cried because my phone was my only companion and I couldn’t continue reading everyday as I was used to. I was bored to death, had nothing to do, missed my phone and all the things I did with it and finally watched Money Heist season 1–4. After two weeks I got my first iPhone, an 8plus though and I was happy to be back to the digital space once again.
Now this was where depression kicked in, I had no skills and felt like trash. I was also going through an emotional breakdown and everything around me was falling apart.
In May, my friend Otiora Macanthony Chukwuemeka talked to me about design. I also didn’t have a laptop and the only application on design I could actually practice with on my phone was CANVA. I downloaded the application and started playing with it.
After this I started trying to make minimal designs using CANVA. I also had a weekly timetable with the help of my friend Ihedilionye Gerald Soromtochukwu where I had activities for the week.
I tried my best to keep up with this timetable, some days I wouldn’t accomplish all I was meant to but I still tried my best. In the later part of July, I had a discussion with a friend Enyioha Onyinye Chukwuemeka who told me to come for him as an intern in his startup called Totalviewmedia. Guess what, I turned down the offer with excuse that my dad won’t let me go to Lagos, Nigeria and I haven’t been to Lagos before now.
I went back to my sad life and continued reminding myself I wasn’t good enough. Later I had a discussion with Macthanthony who told me to be an adult and take control of my life. He encouraged me to talk to my dad about going to Lagos and make him see reasons why I should go to Lagos. Now without even thinking of how to talk to my dad about, I called Onyinye and told him I’ll take internship offer.
So my dad finally agreed that I leave for Lagos after so much explanations of why this was the best opportunity for me to grow. On the 29th of August, 2020 I finally went to Lagos for the first time and my dad took me there on the same flight and returned the next day on a return flight back to Portharcourt.
On this same day I went to the famous computer village and got my laptop as I needed it for the internship. I started my internship on the 31st of August, 2020. I started learning alot of things thanks to Onyinye. I learnt how to use a camera, components of a camera, virtual tour production, how to use canva on a laptop and made my first post on Linkedin.
One day after taking a picture of my colleague at work, Onyinye said to me “Eunice remove Matthew from this picture and put him in his dream house”. I was surprised because I knew I couldn’t do that with Canva and he said I should use ADOBE PHOTOSHOP to make it happen and submit by 4pm the same day. I quickly remembered my friend Kizito was a photoshop expert and I called him on a video call to guide me and I got my task right.
This was how I got into Graphic Design, daily Onyinye would give me videos to watch on how to use photoshop and made recreate some existing logos as tasks. At this point I felt like he was forcing me into it because to be honest I didn’t like the fact he was criticizing any work I did, sometimes I had to do them all over again till he approved it was good. I gradually started doing minimal designs for totalviewmedia that they posted on their social media platforms. I continued learning how to use adobe photoshop and at some point I branched into adobe illustrator.
In October 2020, Onyinye told me to join an online design competition organised by the UTIVA DESIGN BRAND and it was called the Utiva design competition of which I registered as a graphic designer. After a couple of weeks the task of the competition was sent to my mail and it stated “ Choose a company amongst Bamboo, Agro farms and Wallets and create a high fidelity prototype either mobile or web and write about the company’s goals and challenges”. Immediately I read, I told myself I wasn’t doing this task.
Onyinye then saw me and asked me about it and I showed the mail and said I wasn’t doing it and he said I must do it whether I felt like it or not. The next thing he told me to look up all three companies and choose the one I was going to work with. Next he told me to do a research on what a high fidelity prototype was and I discovered it was something under UI/UX. Well I finally did the task with adobe xd and submitted in 6 days as the deadline was due for that period.
My internship totalviewmedia finally ended on the 30th of November, 2020 after which I started a Graphic design internship at SIZA CONSULTING AGENCY and started doing DAILYUIs. This was me trying to joggle both graphic and product design at the same time. At Siza, I did designs for brands they managed and my internship ended in January 2021 after I resumed school and had exams to write with all the final year stress I had to put up with.
In March 2021, I registered for the Zuri internship and I got accepted into the internship. The internship kicked off and I made to the project phase after getting 91.06% after two months of training phase. At the end of the project phase my team designed the product we called RECRUITNG.
At this point I was still getting minimal jobs on design which helped me improve gradually in graphic design. In July, I applied for the Genesys Tech Hub Internship popularly known as Learnable 21. After three stages of interviews, I finally got in and the internship kicked off in September 2021 and it’s still ongoing. Learnable 21 has been amazing, I have the best team members (Victor Ifeanyi, Adayemi Egenti and Blessing Friday), an amazing mentor Njoku Godson and Uke Jeremiah Isaiah who happens to be the one who manages the internship.
In the first week of October 2021, I got my first paid design gig and I was scared to my bones because I have never done a full product all by myself but well in two weeks I finished the design of the product and I was proud of myself. I also recently started posting on my Behance and Linkedin about the designs I do because I have made a decision to put myself out there and practice to become better at my skill.
In the coming years I see myself building products with amazing user experiences for the users, amazing brands and great designs too. I also want to say a big thank you to my parents, siblings and friends like Johnsmart, Ugo, Daniel and alot of others who have made my one year in design amazing.
