Ayodeji
Olagbaiye

What led you into design?

It started when I made the decision that I wanted to get a career change, I was working a sales job I hated and needed a new career. So I started by googling in-demand skills and coding seemed the most sought-after at the time, so I quit my sales job and went to a boot camp for 3months to learn software development. While learning, I needed to find designs I could build which led me to sites like Dribbble & Behance and I was amazed by the beautiful designs I saw there. Initially, I wasn't sure if it was something I could do cause I thought you had to have a unique talent to be able to create such beautiful designs, but after a while, I got an internship at a small startup after my boot camp, we didn't have a designer at the time, so I had to be the designer. With time, I realized I enjoyed designing more than writing code.

Later that year I applied for another internship, this time as a designer, we had to present a final project to be judged and a few other people, and I ended up getting offered full-time roles. I stayed at the company for 2 years, it was an ed-tech startup, and I learned a whole lot and got better at my craft. Currently, I work at a fintech company called Kuda, we are building a money app for all Africans and I love it here.

What does a typical day look like?

A typical day for me starts heading to my work desk to go through my emails then, slack, I might either already have a task I am working on or I am given a new task by a product manager. Usually, my task might be to work on a new exploration or an update to an existing feature on our app. I primarily work on "Retail- Mobile" which is essentially the customer-facing product, other designers at my company work on other products like our design system, web products, or internal tools. I also have a daily standup around 9:30 am - 10:00 am ( except on Thursdays, Thursdays are no meeting days). On Fridays, we have Sprint reviews. Once I'm done with my task, I inform my design lead to review, then the product manager, based on their feedback, I might have to iterate on my design. I also have someone from Comms help with copy on my designs before finally handing off to the devs that will work on it.

For the rest of the day, I might be working on a personal project, watching YouTube, or catching up on a show on Netflix or Amazon Prime Video.

What's your workstation setup?

Where do you go to get inspired?

I get inspired by going through app designs on sites like mobbin.com or pageflows. For web, I go through sites like Landbook, saaslandingpage, Lapa.ninja. Also, I get inspired by the work some of my friends do.

What product have you recently seen that made you think this is great design?

The AIAIAI TMA-2 Studio Wireless Headphones without a doubt. I like that they are modular and users can upgrade, rather than purchasing a completely new pair of headphones and even repair them if certain parts become faulty by purchasing the parts that they need to replace. I don't think I have seen any other headphones do something quite as unique as that.

What pieces of work are you most proud of?

The work I'm currently doing here at Kuda for sure. Before joining the company, I was( still am) a user of their app and I loved it and have been wanting to join the company at some point if the opportunity presented itself. So to be working on a product I genuinely love and use almost every day feels amazing. I have worked on an update to beneficiaries on the app that lets users save the bank details of their friends or the people they transact with the most so they can send & receive money from them easily. So you are able to save multiple payment options for a particular friend so you can send money to them using any of the options whenever you like.

What design challenges do you face at your company?

Time management. It's something I generally struggle with. My way of tackling that is to make use of a to-do list for outlining my tasks for the day and week. Sometimes, I have multiple things to work on and it can be a bit overwhelming.

What music do you listen to while designing?

Any advice for ambitious designers?

Practice Practice Practice. Also, learning never stops. There are tons of free resources online for you to use to get started in design. As long as you stay focused on learning and getting better at design, you will definitely achieve your dream. Keep pushing.

Anything you want to promote or plug?

TinType. Currently building TinType with Daniella Uchendu-Oji (https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellauchenduoji/) It's a hub for creatives that fosters collaboration, also it's a resource bank for assets for all creative types with a focus on assets from diverse creators. This is my first time building a product, it's challenging but also exciting. Join our waitlist to be notified when we launch; https://www.trytintype.io/