How personal branding helped my design journey; who is Oba Afolayan?

A lot of people know me as Oba Afolayan, but my legal name is Idowu Obaloluwa Victor. You might be wondering why I decided to personalize Oba Afolayan as my brand name and how it has helped my design journey so far. In this article, I will take you through my little experience.

Due to personal reasons, I felt uncomfortable using my legal name and I just couldn’t connect to the vibe it gave me as a designer. It also looked long for a brand name too. So, I decided to use Oba and one of my other names, Pelumi as my brand name. I changed my social media handle to “Oba Pelumi”.

I felt I was on track but at a point, I asked myself a question;

“Is your personal or entrepreneurial brand telling the world what you want people to know?”

I discovered that personal branding is not about having a logo or a brand color. It’s more about how I position myself in the creative space, what makes me unique, and what makes me stand out among my mates; I spent days thinking about these questions but nothing happened.

Luckily for me, I was opportune to live with a Brand Strategist for a while. During that period, he taught me some strategies and how they must be applied. A lot of my unsolved questions were answered. And it seemed like I was given a key to discovering myself. I discovered my urge to solve problems, help people discover themselves, and a lot more.

A strong personal brand will have a strong positive effect on yourself and the people you work with

After my Self-Discovery session, I decided to make changes to who I wanted my client to see when dealing with me. Here are some of the tips I used in building my brand as a designer and how they helped me;

Research

In the design world, there are so many aspects; Marketing Designs, Logo Designs, User Interfaces(UI), Illustrations and so many others. Being a designer, I had a keen interest in all aspects. But then I thought about what I wanted to be known for in the design space, and what will set me apart from other designers in the space?

Commit to a niche, but choose the one you can win.

I love graphic design, but I picked brand Identity design over others, and my Journey as a Brand Identity Designer started. The ride has definitely not been an easy one but then I fought and I’m still fighting through the challenges. and gave me tasks to complete just to help my consistency.

One thing you should know is this, you can easily dominate a space if you are known for one thing or consistent with one thing. All the big names in the design space started by dominating a small space.

After I become an expert in your niche, I can continue to move into other design spaces, but I need to be known for a particular thing.

Weave your branding into what you do

So back to my story, Oba Pelumi was my brand name, and I liked it for a while but I got tired. e and also I wanted to focus more on Brand Identity Designs so I wanted to do a personal rebranding.

I wanted something unique so i went to search on Google and I saw a lot of people using Oba Pelumi. that triggered me to change it to Oba Afolayan. Afolayan was a special name given to me by my grandma, and then Oba Afolayan hadn’t been used by anyone on google. So I felt, why not?

I rebranded and Oba Afolayan came to a realization. I changed my email address to the name because I wanted my email to be easily accessible to my clients. I changed all my social media handles to Oba Afolayan because I wanted to be conscious of Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

As a growing junior designer I wanted my content to reach a large audience of designers who could relate to my content and encourage fellow designers like me, so I changed the kind of content I pushed out and added captions relating to designers. I saw a positive response, my audience grew and I started a community at my university; Obafemi Awolowo University known as OAU Designers Community.

Put yourself out there by going to conferences and events

People addressed me as Oba Afolayan and i already had an online audience but i also wanted to network physically with fellow designers and potential clients

I started attending design-related events, conferences, hangouts, and so many events. I ensured I participated in at least one activity in every event I went for to get a chance to say my name and get noticed by everyone.

How has Personal branding helped me?

I’ve spent 2 years in my design career and so far, I have been building my skills, connections, and personal brand. I have been able to focus on a particular niche; Brand Identity Design, and I’ve seen so much growth in my career. I was known for that, which helped me reach my target audience.

My brand name Oba Afolayan has helped me to reach my target audience; my potential clients and fellow designers. It has also given me a platform to talk about — everything from branding to marketing to personal development. This has given me an audience outside design and people are eager to listen to me and connect with me regardless of the kind of content I have out there.

“Most people are better off spending time doing something remarkable before building a personal brand. Don’t build a personal brand if it isn’t time. Do something remarkable first.”

Well, that will be all for now. See you in my next article.