“I almost got fired from Bamboo”: Day 1-1000 of Belonwus

In Day 1–1000, we follow founders through the raw, unfiltered journey of company-building: the early scrambles, the quiet breakthroughs, the painful pivots, and the milestones that shape what a business becomes.

When Lagos-based football club, Sporting Lagos launched its brand new identity—jersey, typography, campaign—the internet exploded. Strangers tweeted: “I think I’ve found my new club.” Others asked, “Where can I buy this jersey?”

I was determined to seek out the designer or creative studio that had made the club jerseys some of the most desirable pieces of clothing in Lagos. For the first time since I was born, I saw Nigerians wear a local football jersey with pride and style. My quest led to Jordan Belonwu.

It did not surprise me to learn that his studio, Belonwus, was behind other outstanding branding of some of Nigeria’s prominent tech startups, including Zap by Paystack, Grey, JuicyWay and Cassava.

Belonwu is my guest today on Day 1–1000. We spoke for nearly two hours—the longest interview I’ve done for this column—and the conversation felt like a masterclass on taste, identity, and proving yourself again and again. During our conversation, Belonwu takes me  from his Blackberry Messenger (BBM) logo days to nearly being fired by fintech company, Bamboo, and running a studio that now chooses who to work with.

Act I — The making of taste

“I think I’ve been designing since I was a teenager,” Belonwu says when I ask where it all started, a mix of happy accidents. He grew up in Lagos, the child of a fine art–appreciating mother. In their home was a computer with illustration software. “I was redrawing the Superman logo on CorelDRAW before I even knew what design was.” In secondary school, he tried science and failed nearly every subject. “At some point, I realised: I’m not a science student. I’m just not.” He switched to arts and eventually studied Fine Art at the University of Benin.

But even there, he didn’t fit neatly into the system. While his peers painted or sculpted, Belonwu was already using Illustrator and Photoshop, teaching himself software the department dismissed. “We were told to do assignments in CorelDRAW. I was using Illustrator. And the lecturers hated that,” he says.

He clashed with teachers. He fought for relevance in a system that prized hand-painted poster boards over digital precision. “You’d be asked to paint a Close-Up ad by hand. It wasn’t design education, it was nostalgia training.”

He never stopped designing, though. On BBM, he posted logos he had made for friends. More friends reached out: campus makeup artists, photographers, fashion entrepreneurs. Soon everyone in school knew someone who had a ‘Jordan logo’. “I didn’t know it was brand identity at the time. I just thought I was designing logos.”

What he had—even then—was taste. “Because of my mum, and the artists she knew, I had early exposure to what great art looked like.” That early calibration of the eye, the sense of refinement still anchors his work today.

Act II — The battle for belief

After school, Belonwu didn’t spend a week job-hunting. He texted a designer friend just to say he was open to opportunities and got called in the next day. He was hired immediately. He worked at CampSport, then freelanced, then got pulled into an advertising agency— Image & Time—where he finally saw what real design teams looked like. “It was the first time I realised I wasn’t that good,” he tells me. “Everyone was faster, sharper. That place taught me to work under pressure.”

But it was his next move that almost broke him. Two months into a design role at Bamboo, his output almost got him fired. “I was designing a pitch deck for an investor,” he recalls. “It was terrible. Not good enough. I hadn’t done anything that high-stakes before.” The founder called him in and showed him a better deck: “This was done by someone we didn’t hire. And we hired you.”

He left that meeting unsure if he still had a job. Seeing as he wasn’t asked to leave, he launched a secret redemption plan which he called “Project 27.”

“I messaged everyone—Ope from Paystack, people from Cowrywise, Facebook. I asked for help. I watched YouTube tutorials like my life depended on it.” For two months, he redesigned Bamboo’s branding at night while doing his actual job during the day.

The work paid off. Bamboo kept him. Eventually, they raised a round, expanded into Ghana, and gave him full creative control. “I was creative director. I was the photographer. I was managing decks for Helium Health, designing Money Africa’s visuals every morning, managing Bamboo’s social accounts, and hiring designers. It was insane.”

In 2021, after nearly two years, Bamboo offered him stock options and a bigger role. He turned them down to start his own studio. “I didn’t want to be tied down,” he told me. “I knew I wanted to build something of my own.”

Days 1–100: Crafting culture beyond the logo

Belonwu didn’t walk out into uncertainty. He had already built enough reputation that projects were lining up. His first client came before the studio had a name. Taeillo, a furniture company, was first. Then cross-border remittance startup, JuicyWay, followed shortly after.

He hired his first employee, Joseph, who had previously applied for an internship at Bamboo but didn’t get in. Another employee, Mayowa, joined part-time then became a full-time hire. There was no pitch deck. No org chart. The model was simple: do the work; when it gets too much, hire someone else. The team grew one overwhelmed day at a time.

But the work was undeniable. Series A startups started calling. Zap. Juicy Way. Grey. Bamboo again. And Lagos-based football club, Sporting Lagos. One by one, he became the visual architect of Nigeria’s most design-forward startups.

In the first few months, the studio moved fast. Belonwu and his lean team worked on brand identities, merchandise design, and production design. Soon, he began noticing a trend: the brands that reached out weren’t just interested in design, they wanted distinctiveness. They wanted branding strategy. They wanted to work with a studio that made them feel different.

It was around this time the studio began defining values. What would they say yes to? More importantly, what would they say no to?

That answer showed up when two betting companies reached out. Belonwu says he didn’t decide alone. He asked his team. “I ran a poll. I said: “If you had full autonomy, would you work with a betting company?” Only one person said yes. Everyone else said no. The answer became clear.

He tells me now, almost casually: “Gambling is too dangerous to have great identity.” That line stayed with me.

The make or break Sporting Lagos project

One of his most euphoric—and painful—projects was Sporting Lagos. Midway through the rebrand, the client almost pulled the plug. “They said they might stick with the old identity.”

Belonwu and his team had already worked on it for five months. “I wasn’t even thinking about the money,” Jordan said. “I just couldn’t imagine all this work—the detail, the cultural nuance—not being seen.” He fought for it. He can’t even remember exactly how it got resolved, but the project got back on track. They resumed. And what came out of that work changed everything.

When Sporting Lagos finally launched the new identity—jersey, typography, campaign, everything—the internet exploded. Strangers tweeted: “I think I’ve found my new club.” Others asked, “Where can I buy this jersey?”

Belonwu’s  studio built everything from scratch—the pattern inspired by road markings and Nigerian truck art. The bird motif on the away jersey symbolised migration—a metaphor for fans flocking to this new team.

“We put so much into that identity,” he says, pulling up photos of the moodboards, “the stitched sleeves, the custom typography. Seeing strangers wear it was the highest validation.”

The jerseys sold out. The football club’s social media followers jumped from 4,000 to 17,000. And Jordan, who fought to keep the project alive, finally got to see his work on people. “That’s when I knew. People don’t just want brands. They want brands that feel like them,” he says.

The Sporting Lagos project would later earn Belonwu a referral for the Paystack project. 

Day 1000

It’s been four years since Belonwu walked away from Bamboo and launched his eponymous studio. Today, the studio employs 12 people. The team has branded some of the most recognisable startups in Nigeria. They’ve made merch, rebranded apps, directed commercials, built sets, designed exhibition pieces, and made fans fall in love with football jerseys.

“I don’t think we have a style,” he tells me. “Our style is: it must not look like the last thing we did.”

But the company’s proudest shift is that they don’t chase clients anymore. Clients chase them. They don’t run ads. They don’t send pitch decks. Every single client—from Zap to Grey to JuicyWay to Bamboo—has come through referrals. “It’s not about scale. We’re not trying to be Uber. We’re trying to be unforgettable,” he says.

If a startup doesn’t care about design, they politely say no. If they don’t share values—like those betting companies—they walk away.

“Some people don’t understand design,” he said. “And if you don’t, I can’t convince you. Especially when I know it’ll cost you money.”

Present Day

At a talk last year, Belonwu titled his keynote: “We’re Finally Good Enough.” The name came from a moment of vindication when design agency, Wieden+Kennedy London rebranded Upwork using a layout system nearly identical to what his studio had built for Bamboo a year earlier. “I don’t think they copied us. I think we just arrived at the same truth,” he says.

That moment convinced him they were no longer “local” designers. They were global in thought, execution, and ambition. They just happened to be based in Lagos.

When I ask if he feels like they’ve made it, he pauses then smiles. “We used to dream of global relevance. But now we know: we’re already here.”

I ask him what’s next. A bigger studio? Global clients? A product line? He shrugs. “Honestly, I just want to keep proving that Nigerian design can be world-class and still be rooted in culture.”

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