Sikemi Bakare is an amazing Brand Designer who started designing in 2018 while studying law in the university.

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Tell Us About How You Started Designing.

Design wasn't intentional. I started using Canva randomly. At the time, I was studying Law in university. But it wasn't really my point of interest and I didn't want to pursue it. So I was offhandedly looking for alternatives. 

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I started practicing graphic design in my 3rd year in the university around 2018 and brand identity specifically in the year 2020. When I began graphic designing, my best friend talked me into taking a job designing a poster for our department in school. I started doing it for people, and at some point, I really started to like it. I started taking it more seriously when people started paying me for my work and I thought, “I could actually do this for a career”. Nothing was streamlined though. All I did was make posters. 

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So I started off as a graphic designer, but I didn't know what I wanted to do, I was doing everything singularly as opposed to uniformly. I wanted to make logos, packaging, maybe social media but not separately. So at that time whenever a business came to me, I would do a logo and package and maybe add some typography. I didn't realize there was a blanket way to streamline everything because I didn't really understand what brand identity was.  Most of my skills were either self taught or through youtube tutorials. But I couldn't find anything cohesive on youtube because I didn't even know what to search for in the first place. Then I saw a tweet about someone offering a scholarship for a Geneza course on brand identity design. Then I saw the name brand identity design and I googled it and saw it essentially captured what I wanted. I didn't get in through the scholarship but I begged my parents to pay for the Geneza course and that was how I started understanding what brand identity in particular was and began practicing it more. 

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What Does Your Work Entail Now?

Currently, I'm a freelancer. I worked in a design agency called Kishi Creative from 2021 to 2022. My main job was to make presentations of the projects they had worked on and they wanted to get out there. They also groomed me in being a brand identity designer as well. So more than being a job, it was a great learning experience because it helped me understand my style of design and understand how to design in the way I wanted and not just the way I have seen others design.

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You Have A Very Unique And Interesting Style. My Favorite Work By You Would Be Beam. Could You Share Your Ideation Process?

I don't really have a streamlined process. It's mostly from stuff I have seen. I need to see something on a template and then turn that template into a different design. That's how I started when I was using Canva, which is essentially a template app although there are options for you to start a project afresh. I would take their template and change it into something that I want. I usually need to see something built so I can turn it into something else. I have done a lot of things from scratch but largely, I prefer to be informed by a template.

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How Do You Balance Creativity And Practicality As A Designer?

It's pretty tough because some clients are very opinionated on what they want. 

At the beginning, It was more of just answering the clients even if they didn’t really understand the process or what they were requesting. But learning and gaining more experience made me understand how to approach a client rather than just taking what they want. 

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So clear communication with clients is key, especially demanding clients. An effective way for me is by giving them a creative direction document with my ideas in it and ideas based on their suggestions. That way, getting their suggestions and putting a spin on it from my perspective as a designer. I mean, they are here for my perspective on what their brand should look like so I should definitely share it with them.

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For example; if there is a project and the theme is 'natural or earthy' which usually means an earth-toned palette but they want something more vibrant which may not be in line with the branding, I explain why I picked those colors and why they work better. Explaining your point of view can be a big turning point in changing clients' minds or getting them aligned with your vision. 

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Another thing is learning to compromise. The client might still want what they want. You have to ensure the clients' visions do not cloud the design. So if they want different colors, you can incorporate those colors, texts or elements in a way that is cohesive with the brand vision. But personally, it mostly works when I explain my view from a more informed perspective. They understand where I'm coming from and whatever changes they have, we can implement it. 

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A third thing to do in cases when you have no other choice but to follow the clients' vision, which may not align with you (because sometimes, this happens) is to let go and design what they want. You can input your vision in the presentation after the project is done, sometimes all you need is acquiesce. Then I channel my energy into personal projects. I find that personal projects can help you come to terms with the fact that maybe the vision was not the right one for the project but you can still execute it on your own. It tends to bring a sense of personal satisfaction and helps you grow as a designer. For example, Beam wasn't a client's project. It was just me trying out stuff.

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How Do You Approach Designing For Diverse Audiences And Ensure Inclusivity In Your Work?

For a diverse audience, I try to understand the diversity. It plays a key role in my approach. If it's gender diversity for example, I find a way to marry the perspective of whomever I'm trying to appeal to. So if maybe I'm creating a brand identity for a spa, it's mostly women who visit spas but they are for everyone. In that kind of situation, I try to make visual imagery for everyone. I might use a more 'feminine' typography for the main copy and a more sturdy or business typography for the copy of the body. I'll try to let everyone see themselves in the branding essentially. It can be challenging and I'm not even sure I have mastered it myself. I'd say it's a work in progress. But I try to use the design elements to reach the different areas.

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Can You Tell Us About A Design Challenge You Faced And How You Overcame It?

I recently went through a bit of a design block. There was a project I was working on that didn't work out. I was not getting what the client wanted.  It made me falter in my confidence and I started to think that maybe I was not so good. I felt like I couldn’t even get the vision right even if it seemed very straightforward. We eventually parted ways and it was really painful because it was a project I really wanted and was very excited about. For it to have ended that way, it really stressed me out and it kind of pushed me into a block. I was already stressed from the year before and this was just the beginning of the year. I had a creative shut down. 

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For about a month or two, I didn't do anything. I tried to work on the presentation for a project and the design I worked on was terrible. I had to delete the file. I decided to take things step by step and start at the very beginning of my process which is always to create a mood board. I gathered images I liked relating to the brand and put them together to form a giant mood board. It was a really slow process but it got me out of my head space and I started progressing slowly. The mood board took me about three weeks to complete because I was approaching it slowly and very carefully. I didn't want to mess with my head by putting something unrealistic and not be able to meet it. So I did something very simple. I would say the design block was my challenge and I overcame it by taking everything step by step.

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As A Freelancer, Do You Collaborate With Other Designers Or Developers Often?

I mainly work solo. I'm currently collaborating with a web developer to just bring out the project but I mainly work alone. However, I do want to work with other creatives soon.

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Can You Share A Design Project That Pushed Your Skills And Helped You Grow As A Designer?

I would say the Bubblegum project. I had to do UI design which I have never done before. I had to do different internal pages and I usually just do a landing page just for the client to see how their brand would look on a website. I don't typically add UI design in my services. But this was a digital magazine and it will exist primarily on the website. I couldn't really see how else to present it other than showing it on the website in the full format. So I had to research and take quick lessons on Youtube to learn how to tackle UI design. It was easier for me because I'm already a graphic designer and a lot of it is just alignment and regular design principles. It didn't really take much for me to pick it up. But it was the first time I had ever done UI design.

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How Do You Measure The Impact Of Your Design And Gauge Its Success?

I gauge success through recommendations. Whenever I put my work out, I want to see how many people get back to me and if they do, how many are actually interested in working together. It doesn't really matter how many likes or comments I get. It's just the optics and feasibility of the situation. What I need from a project is to get more clientele and form more business relationships. 

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A design is successful when I am recommended to someone, they see my designs and they follow through like "yes, let's do this". That’s actually how I have grown, through referrals and recommendations.

Can You Talk About A Design Project You Are Particularly Proud Of?

It would be Beam. It took me about five hours including my research time. At that time, I was still new to brand design so I didn't really take the proper processes of research and everything because now, I think the presentation is not as thorough as it should be. Now, I wouldn't design that way. I would keep the colors and logos and the main element of the brand but the presentation would be a lot more detailed. There'll be a lot more cohesion in it. But I am really proud of that project because it was the first time I just did something, and it really got me a lot of exposure. It got me a lot of new clients and the job I had for a year. That's the first design I did and I put my work out there, so I'm just going to leave it as it is. I'm probably never going to take it down.

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If You Had To Start Design All Over, Is There Anything You Would Do Differently?

Yeah, I would start from the very beginning. I would definitely pay closer attention to my presentation and my portfolio. It’s taking so much time to fill it up now. I would definitely have been better about presenting my work and putting my work out there. I'll do better in exposing myself to the general public more. I'm pretty reclusive when it comes to showcasing myself and showcasing my work, but this job requires me to do that, and I can't avoid it. I would probably not do anything else differently, because all the “little” mistakes I made, all the "bad" designs, led me to where I am now. So there isn't much I'll change about that journey, but putting myself out there, I'll definitely do that.

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What Is Your Advice To People Who Want To Start Or Who Are Just Starting Out In Design?

My advice would be to be more patient. There's a lot of anxiety that comes with starting something new, especially when you look around and see how advanced other people are, it might feel or seem impossible to get to that point. So be more patient. You'll be fine. You'll get there. 

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And another advice is, as a designer you need to research more. Some designers come to me for advice and insight. I find it odd sometimes because I also feel like I'm such a young designer as well but it means I am doing something that appeals to them so I welcome it. But when they come to me, the common factor is that the research aspect of their work is a bit lacking, and it makes them repetitive in their work. So, I think researching the project from the top to bottom, becoming an expert in the brand that you're designing for really helps. If you're designing for a hotel, become an expert in hotels. Understand what hotels are. How did they become a thing in the world? What's the history of it? What's the most popular one? They might just seem like just random trivia. But one thing I have found in my own process is that thorough research helps me understand what I am doing and what I'm designing for. It informs my visual output, how I design and what I design. 

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Also, put yourself out there.

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Follow Sikemi on Instagram here or get inspired by her work on Behance here.