Fiwa is the founder of Perxels as well as the team lead. Having mentored over a thousand students, she started Perxels with the aim of helping young UI/UX designers grow and thrive in the industry.
Fiwa’s brief Introduction
Although I am popularly known as Fiwa, my name is “ OKUNADE, Abiodun Olasunmbo”. I gave myself the name “Fiwa” which is inspired by one of the things I want to be known for in this generation. “Fiwa” is a cut out from “Fiwasewa” which means use your character as beauty. I was really intentional about giving myself the name because I want people to know me for having a good character and a life of impact. A good character to me isn’t kneeling down to greet (like the Yoruba culture for respect) but is a sum of discipline, integrity and being true to oneself. It also means to have a positive impact on others — having knowledge and sharing it. I don’t like seeing others go through pain for knowledge I have and can give.
Back to the brief information about me, I am from Ogun State, Nigeria. Except for having my tertiary education in Oyo state, Nigeria, I have lived in Lagos State practically my whole life. I am a UI/UX designer and definitely someone you’d tag as a workaholic.
Her Journey into UI/UX
I studied Computer Science and Engineering in University. At some point in my life, I realized that I needed to be involved in something I was really good at. As a computer science student, I was introduced to programming at a very early stage. Being passionate about learning, I attended a lot of tutorials, read books about programming, but I barely always remember anything a few hours later. Regardless of how intensive I read or even practice coding, it just wasn’t my forte.
During my stay in school, universities went on strike and I decided to use the free time well. I have always been a lover of arts, specifically sculpturing, and it seemed like an interesting thing to do. This led me to register in an art workshop during the strike. They had so many branches like drawing, painting, sculpting, flyer designs, printing flyers, shirt designs etc. I chose flyer design and printing because I had been curious about how people made the flyers on the notice boards in my school (weird, right?). This curiosity was far above my love for sculpting so I didn’t hesitate to jump on the opportunity.
In the first week of training, I was introduced to Corel Draw (this was my first design tool). Being a very fast learner my boss grew fond of me — he was enthusiastic about my growth and this motivated me to work harder. I was so pumped about learning and spent most of my time using the school WiFi to watch YouTube videos on Corel Draw and graphic designing. This made me ahead of my design class and I anticipated every class so as to show what I had just learnt. All of this ignited my love for design and it was amazing to know that I could be creative without having to cram anything or work under the “Coding Pressure”. It felt natural and beautiful. In summary, my journey started as a Graphic designer.
When school got back in session, I realized that unlike coding, there were no design groups nor meet ups held for designers. One day, I came across Figma on Instagram and reached out to them. I had no idea what it was used for (all I knew was that it was a Design tool). They agreed to come to my school after an extensive process. This was when I realized that Figma was a UI/UX design tool and was different from Illustrator, Photoshop, CorelDraw and the likes. I had to expose myself to the world of UI/UX because I was given the role of a Figma educator (to train other students on UI/UX design). I had to read more, watch more videos, practice more and work extremely hard. This is where my journey as a UI/UX designer began.
Challenges faced.
My journey into UI/UX had a lot of hurdles. In addition to the many principles I didn’t understand, I had no one to put me through and this made me struggle a lot. Youtube and articles helped a bit, but they just weren’t enough. I literally spent a lot of nights outside (right under the sky) because I needed to use the school’s WiFi. Honestly, it was during this period I understood the importance of mentorship.
There was a time I had to travel to Benin to learn UI/UX, but on getting there I realized the company was for graphics design. Although I had accommodation issues in Benin and the company wasn’t into the industry I aspired to be in, I learnt a whole lot despite the unexpected challenges I faced — I would still call the experience a very memorable one. I learnt design ethics/principles there and you know, “No knowledge is a waste”.
Excelling in design began when I started working at CcHUB (Co-creation Hub), where I was Introduced to a professional design work space. Even at this, I never stopped practicing. I practiced every single day for a whole year. EVERY SINGLE DAY! And I am not exaggerating that.
I learnt UI design in a hard way, but I’m glad and grateful I passed through CcHUB (Co-creation Hub) because there I learnt UI/UX design professionally.
All the challenges I faced while learning UI/UX design have been my major driving force to help others understand design better so as to help them achieve lot more in a shorter period of time than I did — this is the foundation of how Perxels was born
In the next article, we would be sharing the early stages of Perxels — how we’ve grown, where we are today and where we are going to.
