2025 marks my 10th year working as an experiential designer and producer, a career path I never knew existed and just happened to stumble on.
How it started –
I got admitted to UNILAG to study architecture in 2011, I had always loved buildings and my dad did take note of that, he had always wanted a career where his kids could eventually start something of their own at an early age, or a path where it was always going to be easy to get high paying jobs, maybe partly because we had rich uncles who were also architects, we just had the idea that architects were rich people, if you are an architect reading this you probably know what I am talking about , Oh was I in for a shocker, but I digress, towards the end of January 2014, I lost my dad to stroke, he was the family’s major sponsor, and as you would imagine, things did really get tough through that year and I earnestly sought to support my siblings and my mom so it doesn’t get overbearing for her.
So, in 2015, I started seeking a job, I was in my 4th year (final year) in architecture school, I had told everyone around that I was willing to do anything to earn a little income at least. On a random Wednesday afternoon, I got a call from Arc. Biodun about a design job at a place in Anthony village. I was excited, didn’t know what to expect, but went in for the interview on Friday, I didn’t know my life and career trajectory was about to change forever. The place was called Eventecture.
EVENTECTURE
I got in for the interview around 3pm, and was sent into the MD’s office by Joy, the then receptionist. I got in the office and was batshit scared. I had seen a man that I assumed was a professor of design, lol, because he had a head full of salt and pepper hair, I mean I was an 18-year-old that had never been in an interview before, I sat down all scared and sweaty. We started the interview, and thankfully, I was able to talk through the tension. He gave me a simple brief to design a bar to submit the following Monday. I went home that day, pulled out my crooked intel pentium laptop and designed the hell out of that bar, in hindsight it was a shitty design, but Mr. Akin saw a potential and hired me via WhatsApp on Monday when I sent back my interpretation of the brief.
In the early days, it was a bit difficult trying to learn the imperial style of dimensioning than the metric style I was used to, made a lot of errors, but Mr. Akin was patient, forever grateful to him for that.
A memory I clearly remember was one of the very first project I worked on at Eventecture, it was a flight themed End-of-year-Party for GTBank. I designed the entire project and was part of the team that set it up. When the event started, I was at a corner looking at how guests were interacting with some of the props I had designed and how they couldn’t get enough of it, I had a realization there that I was going to do experiential design for a long time, creating experiences that people couldn’t get enough of made me feel very fulfilled, I loved it.
During my 6.5 years stint at Eventecture, I learnt a lot, worked with so many global brands, grew from an intern to a design lead to a design manager and then becoming the Group’s Creative Director. I also made life friendships in Femi, who also joined as a 20-year-old QS intern and now runs an impeccable production business, Kenny, a fellow designer and now a cybersecurity enthusiast and Teejay, a brilliant designer.
While at Eventecture, I founded a company called Initial-Trace with Damilola, another brilliant designer I met at Eventecture. It never really took off as we weren’t really sure on how to manage the business as two founders.
I owe a lot to Eventecture as she did equip me with a lot of technical knowledge on how experiences are designed and more importantly, how they are produced.
At the end of 2022, I made a very difficult decision to leave as I knew I needed other challenges, and as someone that aspires to do so much more, I knew my watch at Eventecture had come to an end. Left to Join EXP, a multinational marketing agency, operating out of Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana and South Africa, as their Creative Director.
EXP
Quite interestingly, people tend to always want to hire me on the spot, I think studying architecture always puts me on a higher pedestal than other candidates. Anyways, I had my interview with Rosemary, EXP Nigeria’s MD, she absolutely loved my ideas and hired me on the spot.
I would say joining EXP is probably the best career decision I have made till date. EXP opened me to the proper world of marketing and experiential design I was oblivious to. Understanding how connecting to human beings through their five senses allows them make subconscious decisions on picking a brand over the others, man it felt like magic.
I decided to start taking courses on brand experience, studying materials on experiential design and marketing strategies to ensure I was giving my very best to the team, It just felt like it was the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle in my career till date, I had hoped to build a company like Eventecture in the nearest future, but understanding the core of experiential design in marketing made me realize that I wanted to build a totally different type of company.
I have done some of my best work at EXP and super grateful to be leading one of the best design teams in BTL marketing.
The hunger to do something more and build out a company that matches Eventecture’s level of precision in fabrication and EXP’s level of strategy, led me to found ATOM.
ATOM
The name ATOM is very dear to me, firstly because it speaks to the fact that every experiential creation starts from the very little details of the brand and secondly because it was given to me by someone very dear to me, Temi.
ATOM seeks to address a long-standing issue of the poor conversion of brilliant experiential strategies into brilliant experiential design and build. I saw the void and want to spend the next decade filling it.
THE FUTURE
I ask myself every time if I would want to do this for a long time, while I absolutely love this, I am probably going to hang my boots when I am say 38 / 40, to pursue my dream of building out sports and high end bars, where I serve as the chief mixologists, crafting exceptional blends of premium spirits while also travelling the world with the love of my life.
Check out Atom’s Website – www.atomdsn.com.