In Day 1–1000, we follow founders through the raw, unfiltered journey of company-building: the early scrambles, the quiet breakthroughs, the painful pivots, and the milestones that shape what a business becomes.

When Lagos-based football club, Sporting Lagos launched its brand new identity—jersey, typography, campaign—the internet exploded. Strangers tweeted: “I think I’ve found my new club.” Others asked, “Where can I buy this jersey?”

I was determined to seek out the designer or creative studio that had made the club jerseys some of the most desirable pieces of clothing in Lagos. For the first time since I was born, I saw Nigerians wear a local football jersey with pride and style. My quest led to Jordan Belonwu.

It did not surprise me to learn that his studio, Belonwus, was behind other outstanding branding of some of Nigeria’s prominent tech startups, including Zap by Paystack, Grey, JuicyWay and Casava.

Belonwu is my guest today on Day 1–1000. We spoke for nearly two hours—the longest interview I’ve done for this column—and the conversation felt like a masterclass on taste, identity, and proving yourself again and again. During our conversation, Belonwu takes me  from his Blackberry Messenger (BBM) logo days to nearly being fired by fintech company, Bamboo, and running a studio that now chooses who to work with.

Act I — The making of taste

“I think I’ve been designing since I was a teenager,” Belonwu says when I ask where it all started, a mix of happy accidents. He grew up in Lagos, the child of a fine art–appreciating mother. In their home was a computer with illustration software. “I was redrawing the Superman logo on Microsoft Paint before I even knew what design was.” In secondary school, he tried science and failed nearly every subject. “At some point, I realised: I’m not a science student. I’m just not.” He switched to arts and eventually studied Fine Art at the University of Benin.

But even there, he didn’t fit neatly into the system. While his peers painted or sculpted, Belonwu was already using Illustrator and Photoshop, teaching himself software the department dismissed. “We were told to do assignments in CorelDRAW. I was using Illustrator. And the lecturers hated that,” he says.

He clashed with teachers. He fought for relevance in a system that prized hand-painted poster boards over digital precision. “You’d be asked to paint a Close-Up ad by hand. It wasn’t design education, it was nostalgia training.”

He never stopped designing, though. On BBM, he posted logos he had made for friends. More friends reached out: campus makeup artists, photographers, fashion entrepreneurs. Soon everyone in school knew someone who had a ‘Jordan logo’. “I didn’t know it was brand identity at the time. I just thought I was designing logos.”

What he had—even then—was taste. “Because of my mum, and the artists she knew, I had early exposure to what great art looked like.” That early calibration of the eye, the sense of refinement still anchors his work today.

Act II — The battle for belief

After school, Belonwu didn’t spend a week job-hunting. He texted a designer friend just to say he was open to opportunities and got called in the next day. He was hired immediately. He worked at GampSport, then freelanced, then got pulled into an advertising agency— Image & Time—where he finally saw what real design teams looked like. “It was the first time I realised I wasn’t that good,” he tells me. “Everyone was faster, sharper. That place taught me to work under pressure.”

But it was his next move that almost broke him. Two months into a design role at Bamboo, his output almost got him fired. “I was designing a pitch deck for an investor,” he recalls. “It was terrible. Not good enough. I hadn’t done anything that high-stakes before.” The founder called him in and showed him a better deck: “This was done by someone we didn’t hire. And we hired you.”

He left that meeting unsure if he still had a job. Seeing as he wasn’t asked to leave, he launched a secret redemption plan which he called “Project 27.”

“I messaged everyone—Ope from Paystack, people from Cowrywise, Facebook. I asked for help. I watched YouTube tutorials like my life depended on it.” For two months, he redesigned Bamboo’s branding at night while doing his actual job during the day.

The work paid off. Bamboo kept him. Eventually, they raised a round, expanded into Ghana, and gave him full creative control. “I was creative director. I was the photographer. I was managing decks for Helium Health, designing Money Africa’s visuals every morning, managing Bamboo’s social accounts, and hiring designers. It was insane.”

In 2021, after nearly two years, Bamboo offered him stock options and a bigger role. He turned them down to start his own studio. “I didn’t want to be tied down,” he told me. “I knew I wanted to build something of my own.”

Days 1–100: Crafting culture beyond the logo

Belonwu didn’t walk out into uncertainty. He had already built enough reputation that projects were lining up. His first client came before the studio had a name. Taeillo, a furniture company, was first. Then cross-border remittance startup, JuicyWay, followed shortly after.

He hired his first employee, Mayowa, who had previously applied for an internship at Bamboo but didn’t get in. Mayowa, joined part-time then became a full-time hire. There was no pitch deck. No org chart. The model was simple: do the work; when it gets too much, hire someone else. The team grew one overwhelmed day at a time.

But the work was undeniable. Series A startups started calling. Zap. Juicy Way. Grey. Bamboo again. And Lagos-based football club, Sporting Lagos. One by one, he became the visual architect of Nigeria’s most design-forward startups.

In the first few months, the studio moved fast. Belonwu and his lean team worked on brand identities, merchandise design, and production design. Soon, he began noticing a trend: the brands that reached out weren’t just interested in design, they wanted distinctiveness. They wanted branding strategy. They wanted to work with a studio that made them feel different.

It was around this time the studio began defining values. What would they say yes to? More importantly, what would they say no to?

That answer showed up when two betting companies reached out. Belonwu says he didn’t decide alone. He asked his team. “I ran a poll. I said: “If you had full autonomy, would you work with a betting company?” Only one person said yes. Everyone else said no. The answer became clear.

He tells me now, almost casually: “Gambling is too dangerous to have great identity.” That line stayed with me.

The make or break Sporting Lagos project

One of his most euphoric—and painful—projects was Sporting Lagos. Midway through the rebrand, the client almost pulled the plug. “They said they might stick with the old identity.”

Belonwu and his team had already worked on it for five months. “I wasn’t even thinking about the money,” Jordan said. “I just couldn’t imagine all this work—the detail, the cultural nuance—not being seen.” He fought for it. He can’t even remember exactly how it got resolved, but the project got back on track. They resumed. And what came out of that work changed everything.

When Sporting Lagos finally launched the new identity—jersey, typography, campaign, everything—the internet exploded. Strangers tweeted: “I think I’ve found my new club.” Others asked, “Where can I buy this jersey?”

Belonwu’s  studio built everything from scratch—the pattern inspired by road markings and Nigerian truck art. The bird motif on the away jersey symbolised migration—a metaphor for fans flocking to this new team.

“We put so much into that identity,” he says, pulling up photos of the moodboards, “the stitched sleeves, the custom typography. Seeing strangers wear it was the highest validation.”

The jerseys sold out. The football club’s social media followers jumped from 4,000 to 17,000. And Jordan, who fought to keep the project alive, finally got to see his work on people. “That’s when I knew. People don’t just want brands. They want brands that feel like them,” he says.

The Sporting Lagos project would later earn Belonwu a referral for the Paystack project. 

Day 1000

It’s been four years since Belonwu walked away from Bamboo and launched his eponymous studio. Today, the studio employs 12 people. The team has branded some of the most recognisable startups in Nigeria. They’ve made merch, rebranded apps, art directed commercials, built sets, designed exhibition pieces, and made fans fall in love with football jerseys.

“I don’t think we have a style,” he tells me. “Our style is: it must not look like the last thing we did.”

But the company’s proudest shift is that they don’t chase clients anymore. Clients chase them. They don’t run ads. They don’t send pitch decks. Every single client—from Zap to Grey to JuicyWay to Bamboo—has come through referrals. “It’s not about scale. We’re not trying to be Uber. We’re trying to be unforgettable,” he says.

If a startup doesn’t care about design, they politely say no. If they don’t share values—like those betting companies—they walk away.

“Some people don’t understand design,” he said. “And if you don’t, I can’t convince you. Especially when I know it’ll cost you money.”

Present Day

At a talk last year, Belonwu titled his keynote: “We’re Finally Good Enough.” The name came from a moment of vindication when design agency, Wieden+Kennedy London rebranded Upwork using a layout system nearly identical to what his studio had built for Bamboo a year earlier. “I don’t think they copied us. I think we just arrived at the same truth,” he says.

That moment convinced him they were no longer “local” designers. They were global in thought, execution, and ambition. They just happened to be based in Lagos.

When I ask if he feels like they’ve made it, he pauses then smiles. “We used to dream of global relevance. But now we know: we’re already here.”

I ask him what’s next. A bigger studio? Global clients? A product line? He shrugs. “Honestly, I just want to keep proving that Nigerian design can be world-class and still be rooted in culture.”

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Kehinde Alabi, better known as Louddaaa, interned as a sound engineer in Port Harcourt before moving to Lagos about five years ago. He started seeking employment as a sound engineer since it seemed production didn't make sense — he hadn't produced in over a year as production jobs weren't readily available. He submitted his CVs to studios, companies, and radio stations, but "they all rejected me," Louddaaa recalls in a recent Zoom conversation with OkayAfrica.

A friend would send him a vacancy post that turned out to be Mavin Records. "Are these people trying to scam me or something?" he remembers thinking, but he sent his credentials and got the job after a series of interviews. "It was a miracle," he says, "and I told myself I would be the best recording engineer ever because it felt like a second chance for me. I had hope again."

The journey to becoming a producer was even more interesting, relates Louddaaa. He selected beats and recorded the Mavin Records artists, but stayed back after every session to arrange beats. Due to his residence being on the Mainland, going to the other side of Lagos was stressful each evening. While making beats one night, Don Jazzy entered the studio and heard something he was making. "Can we try Ayra [Starr] on this?" the don asked, and soon enough, Louddaaa got locked in with the newly minted star, whose debut EP and album he would significantly influence.

Still, Louddaaa was unconvinced he was a producer. Sometimes, he flunked the producer sessions he was booked for since he didn't think he could replicate the genius of Ayra Starr's songs. "Working with her was different; we had a deep connection," he would explain. "It was easy; there was no tension. We simply exchanged ideas. They were ideas that took us six months to create; now you want me to create a beat on the spot?"

"It took a while for me to start playing that role of a producer," he says, "because I kept telling myself: 'I don't know why they love this thing that I'm doing. What do they like? This is not really making sense to me.' I wasn't sure about myself. It took me a while to say, 'Bro, it's happening already. They like this."

Since those days of uncertainty, Louddaaa has imprinted his sound more visibly on the colorful skies of contemporary Afrobeats. Shining with a deeply personal energy, the mellow and measured quality of Louddaaa's sound has shaped the early careers of new-age Mavin artists, from Magixx to Bayanni and Boy Spyce. This isn't a mere coincidence, he tells OkayAfrica. "Whenever I want to work with an artist, the first thing I do is try to engage them," he says. "I have a conversation with them and understand where they are. Then I try to create a sound based on all the information I have that I think is unique to your story."

He applied the same approach with Davido, collaborating on two tracks for his recent album, 5IVE. Louddaaa had tried connecting with the star in 2021 and subsequent years, but nothing came out of those efforts. Then, in February of last year, he was inspired by the Holy Spirit — Louddaaa is a firm believer — to create music for Davido, which he collaborated on with his friend, Dayo Grey.

"I was very intentional," he says. "I listen to David a lot, and I have an idea of where he is based on all the songs and features he has done in the past. I also have an idea of where he should be in terms of music, and I just put all those things together."

They made 'Anything,' which stands out as an exceptional high point even among an album characterized by its triumphant moments. Davido had committed to recording the track, and Louddaaa still had many ideas to explore. He wanted something vintage for Davido, a beat with the rustic qualities of the classic "Aye," whose chorus he enthusiastically sings. "I told him, let's go back to that old David," he explains. "Let's create a 2024 record that has an element of the old David but still feels good for this age that we're in. That's how we made '10 Kilo,' I sent it to my songwriter friend, and he came up with some ideas, the melodies, and everything."

Louddaaa orchestrated the record. "I remember when I first sent the beat for 'Anything' to my songwriter, the first thing they wrote, I was like 'nah, this is not it,' because I had an idea what I wanted him to sound like: a Davido and Louddaaa song," he attests. "Everything that you guys hear now, to the glory of God, was something that I envisioned. In terms of the writing, production, and everything, we tried different ideas."

It's clear that Louddaaa isn't just another producer — he's a designer of entire soundscapes. "I call myself an 'A&R' in quotes," he says, "not an official A&R, but I have this ear to design a sound that is unique for an artist." More artists now want the sauce; between last year and now, his roster includes the likes of Lojay, Chike, Black Sherif, and Simi, whose latest album featured nine tracks from Louddaaa. Most of these artists share a soulful core; Louddaaa says the inspiration pulls both ways.

"It's from my end, first of all," he says. "My sound is born from my life experiences. I've gone through so many dark things in my life that I can't even go into details right now. My life is a rollercoaster. Growing up, music was like a coping mechanism for me. It was what I used to bury most of the things I was dealing with as a child and as a teenager. Every time I make music, I connect it to one of those things. I'm saying something, but it's with music. One of my biggest testimonies is when people listen to my music, they tell me they love it, it's so soulful, it's so emotional. And I'm like, 'Thank you, Jesus.' Because that was my goal — I want you to feel something."