The error started on an amazingly hot Thursday afternoon in Ibadan whereby the sun was so bright that it seemed personal.
I was out of a conference with a customer at Dugbe. The job was important to me. I have worked as a brand designer, and I am yet to demonstrate that my minimalistic design can survive in a crowded market. The client had read my proposal, twisted his lips and then said, it is too simple. Nigerians like bold things.”
Those words were after me into the heat.
I was waiting at a bus stop and was exhausted and distracted. I got in the bus without looking at what the sign said. I was sitting next to the window and letting the wind blow my face. Only upon the shouted words of the conductor, Challenge! Resist! that I was wrong myself.
“Ah! I am not going to Challenge, I said.
He shrugged. “Oga, this bus no dey go back.”
I heaved a sigh and bent into the broken leather. I had already lost a client. Now I had lost direction too.
The bus dumped me somewhere in an area in town that I was not familiar with. The heavens were turning grey, and full of rain. I checked my phone. Two unanswered calls of the same client. I had a touch of hope which was soon followed by fear.
I called him back.
“Hello, sir.”
Counsel, sir, said he, his voice less angry. “I’ve been thinking. Can you come back tomorrow? Let’s look at it again.”
Relief washed over me. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
As I hung up the rain started to fall the first drops.
I ran as far as I could get to the nearest available place which was a small public library between a pharmacy and a tailoring shop. I had been residing in Ibadan long enough and had not realized it before.
Inside, it was quiet and cool. The odor of unsold books and dust was present. A woman aged between 35 and 50 years was sitting at a wooden table with a low pair of glasses on her nose.
Good afternoon, she said, meekly.
“Good afternoon, ma. Kindly, would I like to wait here till the rain is over?
She smiled. The end of that is what the library is.
I said yes and went between shelves. The rain became more intense, and tapped the roof with lightning fingers.
I do not know what tugged my hand, but, I picked up a book about branding and design. The cover was faded. I opened it and sat down.
You a designer? the lady inquired on her desk.
“Yes, ma.”
She stood and walked over. “What kind?”
“Minimalist branding. Clean. Simple.”
She examined my face, as though I were a book, too. And human beings do not always comprehend it?
I laughed softly. In the majority of the cases, they believe that it is too simple.
She nodded. “Show me your work.”
I hesitated. It was weird to show my laptop to someone I have never seen before in a rather quiet library, when it was pouring. But I unsealed it and laid it on the table.
She dropped her head forward, and shifted her glasses.
“This one,” she said, pointing. What was the reason of taking so much space?
It allows one to breathe, I said. “It lets the message speak.”
“And this color?”
“It feels calm. Trustworthy.”
She was silent for a while. The rain softened.
You see, you see, you know your work, she said. But do you make your clients understand it?
Her question sat between us.
“I try,” I said. “But maybe not enough.”
She closed the laptop gently. “Simple things are powerful. But man is scared of things he does not know.
We talked for almost an hour. She informed me that she worked in publishing before going back to Ibadan where she was helping her parents. She talked of the way that so many good writers lost their confidence that readers did not immediately understand them.
Come tomorrow, she said before the rain fell down. Write in a narrative style. Not like a design.”
The following day I went back to the office of the client. My palms were warm, however, and my heart steady.
He looked up as I entered. “You’re back.”
“Yes, sir.”
In this case, I did not start with slides. I started by tracing the history of his brand, the way it started, the people it served, what it aspired to be.
I told them, You are already overrun by your customers. In case your design screams, they will develop their backs. It is not empty here, this space of the screen, I said. It is focus.”
He leaned back in his chair.
I demonstrated to him how the straight-forward logo would appear on the signage, on social media, on packaging. I described each option with the same tone as one does a story.
I had reached my end and the room was silent.
He tapped the table lightly. You did not explain it in this way yesterday.
“No, sir.”
He nodded slowly. “Let’s do it your way.”
I signed the contract and walked out of his office.
Later that night, I was back to the wrong bus. Had I got into the right one I would have gone directly home. I would never have found myself in such a tiny library. I would not have greeted the lady with inquisitive eyes and kind inquiries.
A week afterwards, I returned to the library.
She looked up as I entered. Designer, said the young lady with a little smile.
“It worked,” I replied.
“I know,” she said.
We occupied one common table, wooden. This time it was a clear sky outside. I informed her of the client, of the contract, of my intents to come up with a stronger portfolio.
She was listening with her fingers on a book that was closed.
I said as I got up that I had wondered what I would have done had I not been on that bus.
Bringing out her glasses she refocused them. “But you did.”
I went out into the Ibadan evening. Cars moved slowly. Hawkers called out. Life went on as it normally did.
