Product Design. Absurdism. Playlists
2022 was the year I exhausted a tube of lip gloss for the first time in my life.
Product Design (but mostly Webflow)
The one thing I planned to achieve in 2022 was to have 12 months of journaling in place at the start of the new year.
And I did that.
Along the way, I deployed 3 custom websites last year with Webflow and designed more pitch decks than I can count on both hands, with Figma and Pitch.
The first website is a black and white digital version of an artist’s 9-year project, capturing Lagos in monochrome colors. After that, I took on a redesign task for our company website — an almost-complete design overhaul.
Am I the only one who’s never satisfied with my designs, especially after some time has passed? Could it be a result of never having enough time on the design in the first place? Or am I constantly trying to compare it with another designer’s work?
I take pride in the uniqueness of my design systems — I’m surrounded by artistic influence at work (I work for a consumer insights & storytelling lab founded by an artist).
There is hardly any room for mediocrity or boring conventionality at Malokun Labs, and while this doesn’t necessarily mean I have attained excellence in my profession, I definitely do believe we produced some exceptional work last year.
It is now time to have a portfolio.
The first website should be available via QR code in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York this year.
The third website is a beautiful secret I can’t ever share.
Last year I was under no pressure to post my designs on social media because I was busy — simple as that. It did feel quiet and unmotivating some times. No social media validation and no anxiety to keep creating for quantity sake.
I did get almost 200 likes for this one challenge I started and later dropped out of though.
Fears
I have never handed off my Figma designs to any developer to build. I have built all my designs by myself with Webflow. I realize I don’t bother going so far with prototyping on Figma once I understand what I’m trying to build with no-code.
I think this has made me lazy for when I start to design products to handoff to developers. I fear that I don’t know enough.
Also the only thing I’m not proud of from last year are my graphic designs, I want to be better at that too.
Working remotely across Ilorin and Lagos as a designer was exciting in 2022. For financial and spiritual reasons, I moved for months at a time between both states seeking work-life balance.
I particularly enjoyed working in transit the most — on the train from Lagos to Ibadan, Lenovo plugged into the wall, my comfort movie minimized at the top right of the screen.
I realize it’s time to outgrow 2022’s achievements, however impressive. It is time to create more to be proud of.
Absurdism
It wasn’t until the end of 2022 that I finally discovered there was a name for my newfound philosophy — Absurdism
I’ve been through a lot. And I leverage on numerous beliefs and ideologies as a coping mechanism, just like everybody else.
I started with nihilism — the belief that everything is meaningless, and so debauchery is justified and morals, principles are nothing but embellishments on a dead body.
Debauchery may still be justified as life is short and is slipping away every moment. However temperance is important, if we want to be here for a good time and a long time.
For me, nihilism turned into existentialism — the belief that I create my own purpose and I’m not controlled by fate, destiny or God. I am in control.
2022 helped me understand that I am not in control of anything. I’m the hamster in the wheel, racing to nowhere.
I thought I had it all figured out. I thought that I could be so used to past personal loss that a new death, physical or non-physical, could no longer surprise me. Oh, sweet summer child.
My newfound philosophy is that our purpose ultimately, is to love, to grieve and to be present through it all. There is no purpose but to live through it.
Absurdism is the belief that we exist in a purposeless, chaotic universe. There is no meaning or order to anything, and God is essentially randomness. This is where I am right now — at the intersection of Philosophical suicide and Acceptance of the Absurd.
I’m saying that randomness is my God, and my coping mechanism is to believe that randomness cares for me and loves me, and has my best interests at heart. That every setback, every rejection is working out for my good.
We did it Joe, we’ve come full circle.
I pretend that God loves me but at the same time I realize that I am free. Free to do whatever I want and embrace what life has to offer; free to wear my most colorful aso-ebi to church on Sunday to dance, and to read Eckhart Tolle, Carl Jung or Camus on Wednesday because both men interest me and have helped my life significantly more than any pastor has.
Free to read the Bible if I want and free to get smiling faces on blotting paper from newspaper taxis and tangerine trees and marmalade skies.
Thank God for the absurd.
Another milestone was finally going for shows I always wanted to attend — ArtX Lagos, Palmwine Fest, even GTFashion. I was there.
This is the first time an holiday has felt like one. I earned my rest last year and I had no will to do anything at all throughout the days between Christmas and the New Year.
Is this a recurring theme of adulthood?
