The unsung Aluko Brown
This week, I finally got back to finishing up the draft for our company history at FourthCanvas. For January to April 2017, I noted that we had a significant expansion as 4 of our current team leaders joined within that period. What I didn’t specify, in what was to be a “brief history”, was the specifics of how they joined and how peculiar the story of a particular Aluko Brown was.
We clearly needed to bring in new people for the sake of our projects at that time and the near future as we could envision. Tunji Ogunoye was deploying his knowledge arsenal of the design industry, as we looked for names on Instagram and skimmed through profiles. As a small team working from the outskirts of Akure, we didn’t have what it takes (or is it what it took) to attract designers from Lagos. We had to look at other people like us who had the passion, some experience, great potential to develop and worked from outside Lagos. Graduating students of OAU and FUTA were easily our focus areas. After a number of weeks, we had spoken to and interviewed a number of people. We were excited to welcome our new superstars. There was the Ayomide Ajayi with a charming smile, easily evident passion and an initial “very corporate” dressing which seemed a culture shock to begin with before we influenced him (bad influence yeah?), and the Mary Adefisayo who was never “new” even for a second, engaging in banters and making jest of “even me” right from the first few hours. Opeyemi Olugbemiro had come to serve in Akure, upon graduating from UNIBEN. He organised an event, at which I was invited to speak. One thing led to several others and Ope was the Communications Lead we had not realised we needed. Dope! We had our people, but were we done yet? So we thought.
“Victor, there is this guy o. He spoke to me some days back at an event in Ife. He wants to intern with us and learn. His desire and passion is really undeniable”. That’s me trying to paraphrase Tunji Ogunoye. I can’t remember exactly how he said it.
“You know we really can’t afford an additional team member on our payroll now, so if he really means what he said by being able to intern without pay, we could give him chance, seeing as you said he is really passionate about this.”
That’s how Aluko Brown joined us, on a stipend that simply assisted with his transportation to and from the office. He would come to the office sometimes as early as 7 am and in EVERY MINUTE OF THE DAY, OVER THE WEEKS THAT FOLLOWED, he was clearly the guy we could have employed alongside Ayomide, Mary and Opeyemi. After a few months, Bolaji and I began to feel guilty that Aluko was still an intern, and on no salary. More like, “o wrong!” as the comedian Timi Agbaje would have put it in his Instagram skits. His work was deserving of more and even though we made no promises whatsoever, his work earned that we fulfil one. That, we did.
Aluko had moved from Oshogbo and lived with his aunt in Akure. He was a fresh graduate and this was his first workplace engagement. He was the only intern — at a time we didn’t call for interns — and could have felt out of place. We can take credit for a culture and leadership that encouraged otherwise but really, it’s to his credit that he carried himself with a great mix of confidence and humility. He didn’t know so much, he wanted to learn, he had it in him to be one of the very best in the world. He knew all three.
“I knew FourthCanvas was a global design agency and I knew that even if I was the least on the team, it would mean that I was a world-class designer”. That’s how Aluko ‘Brown’ Ayomiposi saw things when he joined.
I am writing this piece because even though Aluko has gone on to be the Lead Designer on our work with Statecraft for President Macky Sall of Senegal, a project on which he brilliantly led the turnaround of a challenging situation for us with the client; become one of our current two internal sub-team leads and risen to become the foremost Product Designer on our team (in a field of work we probably would not have taken serious, at least not yet, without his energetic influence), I think he has been an unsung hero. Insert the word “under-hyped” right here. I do not think I have praised him enough, before him and/or others. And oh, did I mention that Aluko influenced the entire team to switch from Corel Draw to Adobe Illustrator, a move that seemed impossible but was for the right reasons and one we can be thankful for, in hindsight. I should add here that CorelDraw is also a great software but that’s not the point here. What’s important is leading and influencing change even while you had the smallest title on your ID card.
“Bolaji and Victor, please I will like to discuss something important with you” said Aluko on a Friday morning. “So I really need to get to Oshogbo to fix a few things this weekend. I will need to travel one or two hours earlier than 5pm today”.
“Where is that something important o, Aluko?” Till today, Bolaji and I are still waiting for it.
Bolaji, Aluko and I currently live in the same flat. I will tell this story in the same way I do when I am sharing with the team, with all the specific details that I don’t think Opeyemi would have approved of if I showed him this article before publishing. Aluko and I were on boxer shorts, shirt-less (stop, don’t picture it, I am a CEO) and in the kitchen, I am doing the dishes and he is fixing a meal. That’s like the usual routine, while Bolaji is breezing in and out, encouraging us and telling Aluko when the gas is too high and would darken the pot. That was his own JD at home, alongside reminding us to close the doors.
“Victor, this xxxx people really need us o. They are lagging behind on design and it’s obvious they have a really great product. If they fix up their design component, it would be hard for anyone to stop them. Isn’t that what we mean when we say we partner with good businesses to build great businesses? They are good, we can help them be great”.
I stopped the plates midway, reached out to one of the xxxx co-founders on Twitter out of sheer optimism that they will also see Aluko’s point. One week later, we were in their office and had a deal signed. Did I finally finish up those dishes? I can’t recall right now. Did Aluko lead on that project? Yes. Did he almost kill himself on it giving everything day and night? Yes. Was I surprised? No.
There is really a whole lot more to say but you came for an article and not a biography. Take this from me as you go back to your Twitter timeline, Aluko Brown, born Aluko Ayomiposi 24 years ago today, is one of the best designers in this country, one of the most amazing human beings I know and arguably the most unsung of the heroes who currently lead on my team and give people a reason to praise what is supposedly “my leadership”.
One more thing, to maximize this as an open letter. What can Aluko do better? I know it’s a case of a black kettle calling a pot black but he should do better at picking up phone calls and should stop hating on Liverpool because ‘we’ beat his Arsenal team 5–1 on the last matchday of 2018. He should let bygones be bygones.
PS. To confirm to you how really impossible it is to be exhaustive on Aluko without writing a book, I had finished this article, and was adding pictures when upon seeing a picture in which he was holding a photography equipment, I remembered I had not spoken of Aluko’s volunteer role as our Team Photographer from the time he joined, starting with his own camera at a time we had none. I am wondering how many more great contributions I must have forgotten to note in this piece. As I now proceed to finally click Publish, I remember some more things but mehn, I have a waiting Do list.
