Pivot from Science to Graphic Design

Ian Paget: Something I find really interesting about your story is that you are not a trained graphic designer. You actually originally studied as a scientist, but what you've done is that you've been able to pivot, and now you're doing graphic design. Based on your portfolio, you are a very good graphic designer as well. So I want to dive into this story, because I think there might be people listening that might be studying a completely unrelated field and they might potentially want to go into graphic design. So I want to put some focus on this as part of this interview. So let's start off by talking about why did you originally study science?

Fungi Dube: So it's actually a question that I get asked a lot and I am always happy to answer, because when I think of how everything came to be, it's actually weird and crazy and doesn't really make that much sense. But I feel like I always had creative inclinations as I was growing up, so I was that child who would like DIY special occasion cards for my family members. I would draw all the cartoons that I loved, so Big Bird from Sesame Street, Looney Tunes characters. That's what everyone will get on their card, because that's what I know as a child.

Ian Paget: Yeah. I think most creative kids, they tend to copy their favourite characters and stuff like that.

Fungi Dube: Yeah. Yeah. So that went on for a while. So in primary school, I was still doing that and then I went off to high school. I could have easily taken up arts, but I never did actually, because I feel like there was some unwritten law, especially when you're in an African household that tells you that you have to take a more traditional route when it comes to your future career and stuff like that. So it never really dawned on me that I could have done something to do with computer graphics or technical drawing or just general art. So I went on to study science, like you just said, and I did that for my A levels as well, and then went off to UNI and then I did a double major in human anatomy and physiology and biochemistry, which I absolutely loved, because that part still is something that is at my core and is, I guess, a major identifier for me when it comes to my personality and things that intrigue me and that sort of thing.

But the graphic design, or the design aspect of it actually was purely circumstantial, because I graduated in 2014 and I came back home, so I was in South Africa. I came back home and I was job hunting for five months and I could not get anything anywhere. I was just being met with rejection emails left, right, and center. I was getting so frustrated, so I decided that I needed to teach myself a new skill to curb my frustration. Lo and behold, I don't even know how it happened, which is why it's like a freak chance because I logged onto YouTube, and the topic in the video was, "Oh, learn Photoshop with David Gareth Studio," I think Gareth David Studio? Tasty Tuts?, That's how I know it... that's what I think it's called.

Ian Paget: What I'll do is I'll search for it on YouTube, and if it's still there, I'll put a link in the show notes, because I think people will probably be interested to see what it was you was watching.

Fungi Dube: Yeah. So he has these amazing tutorials where you can learn Photoshop and Illustrator. I just was like, "Oh, let me just tap into this. What is it? So I opened the first video and I was completely blown away. I was like, "You're telling me that people can do this with their computers. What?" So I think that creative instinct within me was just awoken, and I was like, "Oh my gosh, let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it." So I started learning and instantly, I was hooked. I was on my computer 24/7, 24/8, 25/8, whatever you call it, because I was just so intrigued by the fact that people could create art using and computers like that. So I did eventually land a day job, which I would go to, but I would come back home and I would burn the midnight oil just trying to learn everything and absorb all this design information and just really see how I could explore this new world. It was the most fascinating thing for me. So I-

Ian Paget: Just before you go too far, there's a couple of things that I feel is worth breaking down with this initially. So there was something that you said earlier about how, I guess, as part of your family or part of your culture about being expected to go down a certain direction. So you chose sciences because it's more academic. Was that expected by your family and if that was the case, what did they think about you when you started looking into non-science based stuff to get into?

Fungi Dube: So it definitely was an expectation, I feel, because what actually happened with me is when I was going through induction week, so my first week of university, I got cold feet because I went to all of these introductory presentations by all these different lectures. The were like, "This is the hardest thing you're ever going to do, so you better make sure that you pull yourselves up," and everything like that. You know that kind of conversation, and I just got so scared. So I called back home and I was like, "I can't do this. I think I want to change faculties, because they are saying all of these things," and it was such an issue. This is still out of love, because like I'm saying in our households and everything like that, I think that's what made sense to our parents and they didn't really get that You could do something outside of the traditional route.

Ian Paget: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Fungi Dube: So I was getting phone calls from my aunts being like, "We heard that you want to change programs. You can't do that. You have to stick with it," and I was like, "Okay, okay, I guess." So it was definitely an expectation for sure. I don't think that I could have easily said, "Hey, I want to be able to go and study graphic design." Not because they would have said no, but there just wasn't a general understanding that you could pick up something creative as a full-time career and a long-term career.

Ian Paget: Yeah. I think there's the general expectation isn't there, like the whole starving artist thing-

Fungi Dube: Yeah, exactly.

Ian Paget: ... but if you was to go on more of an academic route, like science, math, or something like that, if you're not familiar with the industry anyway, it feels like that's a safer direction and you're more likely to get a successful job in anything just because you have this science-based degree. So I think it's goo to talk about this type of thing, because there could be somebody out there listening that's potentially in the same situation as you and actually they're not happy, and actually they would prefer to do something else. But I think it's good that the two of us here, we've both been able to take the avenue of working on graphic design and both of us are self-taught.

I think that's, especially in your case, since you went to university, you studied, I don't know how long you would've studied for, but you studied for a length of time science-based stuff, and then you moved into a completely unrelated field, so that's a complete pivot; whilst in my case, I wanted to go down that route from the beginning, so I was quite fortunate in that sense that even though I don't have any formal qualifications, I was able to get an opportunity early on in my career so that I was able to become a graphic designer. Okay. So one of the other things I wanted to ask you about, you said that you got your first job and then when you got home, you was working on carrying on learning about graphic design in your free time. Was that job related to the sciences or was it just any job that you could get?

Fungi Dube: So it did cover a little bit of what I had studied. So it had to do with the human anatomy side of my degree. So I was working in sports and conditioning in a private primary school. That's what I was doing. So, it did have something to do with what I studied, but not completely because that is what I could get. So I stuck with it for some time, for six years, actually to be precise, but-

Ian Paget: Okay, and you started telling us about how you went about teaching yourself and if I'm understanding right, basically, using YouTube and learning stuff from YouTube, you started with Photoshop. I think one of the challenges with teaching yourself is that you don't know what you don't know.

Fungi Dube: Yeah.

Ian Paget: So how did you go from being someone that was just interested in this and spending your free time learning Photoshop to being to the point where you was good enough to actually become a graphic designer full- time?

Fungi Dube: Oh gosh, that is such an interesting question. I love that, because the beginning of everything was purely chaotic. Like you say, I had no clue what I was doing and I can honestly say that I was winging it. Getting to that point of probably becoming more professional was because I just kept experimenting. I got to a point where I felt like, "Hey, I think I'm proficient enough to design something for someone." My first paying customer or client was actually one of my cousins who had a newborn baby and they were having a baby shower and they're like, "Hey, do you think that you could make a little E-invite for us?" I was like, "Oh, yeah. Sure." I was like, "Oh, and I'll pay you." I was like, "Wait, what? People get paid to do this? Oh, okay." So my family member is the one who got me my first paid gig.

So I think that's when it dawned on me, like a light bulb moment where you're like, "Hey, I can actually charge people for my services," and even then my work was not great. We all start somewhere. I look at it now and I cringe, but I'm proud of it because that's the best that I could do at the time. But I just started self marketing. I would pull up little flyers or business cards that I had done for made up clients or my WhatsApps and just be like, "Hey, if you are looking for someone to do this kind of work for you, I can do it." So I actually got my first corporate client through that because someone referred me to someone and they were like, "Oh, maybe you should try her out. She just starting out, so she's not going to charge you much, so you could actually get some good work for a very reasonable price." It wasn't reasonable. It was super low.

Ian Paget: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think the important thing with this and I did similar, to be honest. So in my case, I think my first paying client outside of a job, I was lucky in the sense that I was able to get a graphic design job in terms of working for myself. One of the first things I did, I think it was a friend at work. She was in this motorcycle group and she wanted me to do a logo for her jacket and she drew it out and she wanted me to put it together for her. It took me a couple of evenings.

I think she paid me 20 pounds, like a fairly low amount of money. But I was happy with that. I was doing it for a friend. It was fun. I enjoyed it. It was in my free time, so I was already making money anyway from a full-time job in a similar way to you, because it sounds like you were in a full-time job and this was something that you was doing in your free time. So financially, I'm making assumptions here, you was probably fine. So any money is just nice to have and for you, it's probably more important to actually get that opportunity.

Fungi Dube: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Ian Paget: I think another good thing about your story so far that I think people can learn from is that you said that you started promoting what you was doing and you mentioned about doing business cards and flyers and all this sort of stuff. I think the advantage of doing that is that you're basically letting people know that you are offering this service and it sounds like one of the people that you spoke to, spoke to someone else and that's how you got your first client.

Fungi Dube: Yeah.

Ian Paget: So it's word-of-mouth. So for listeners, for anyone that wants to start doing this and wants to get opportunities, I think it's good to, even though you might think that you're not good enough yet, you can start to offer it, but like you did at a low price, because you want the opportunity more than the money and I think that's really important.

Fungi Dube: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. I definitely agree with you because when I then eventually got my first corporate job, I designed a logo for them. I designed a letterhead and a business card, oh, and some corporate flies as well, because they were marketing some of their products. I charged him $50, 50 United States dollars, for all of that work, and they were a massive corporate, and I was like, "Oh, my gosh. This is so expensive. How am I even charging them this much?" But that was back then. Like you were saying, it's not really about, "Oh, my gosh, I must make $10,000 right now," but it's like I felt more like I had the opportunity to actually create something and to learn from it and to have my work be out there. So I wasn't super pressed with regards to how much I had charged them, which again, I thought that was an astronomical number at the time, but I was more into the fact that I had an opportunity to actually create and grow as I was starting off my journey.

Ian Paget: Yeah. Yeah, and I think that it's important that you brought that up because in that particular case, you charged some amount of money. It was a relatively low amount of money for the amount of work that you did. But something that I see discussed a lot in Facebook groups and in graphic design communities is basically not to work for free, or not to work for small amounts of money, but actually when you're early in your career and you don't have any experience yet, actually it's a good idea to take on those projects, because the work is of more value to you than it probably is to the client, because you want to be able to do some good work. It's good to have a brief, it's good to work with somebody so that you learn how to collaborate with a client. At the end of that process, you got a little bit of money in that case, and if he was doing a full-time job at the same time that money is great, because any money is extra money on the top of that.

Fungi Dube: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ian Paget: So when I used to do that type of thing, I used to think, "Oh, I can buy any computer game or something." But I think the beauty of that is that once you've done that work, you can then create a portfolio piece and you can show that off to other potential clients and you can get a testimonial from that client as well. So that is a greater value to you, because now you can show that off to other people, especially if you hadn't done that before, this is now a new thing that you can potentially offer and show to other people.

Ian Paget: So I think what you did was totally right. It sounds like a bit of a win for you. Okay. So from what I understand at this particular point, you was in a job there is relevant to your studies, and then in your free time you was teaching yourself graphic design, getting really into it, getting a few bits at work from friends and family. You wasn't charging much, but it was great because you was getting the experience, building up your portfolio and stuff like that. How did you go from doing it as a bit of a hobby to actually getting to the point where you could go all in on this and be a full time graphic designer?

Fungi Dube: So I would say it's natural progression, like the more you do something the more confident you get, the more proficient you get. It naturally follows that you would want more out of it, and because it was something that I was really, really, really into, I just decided to take a very bold move and see what I could do with it and how I could grow it. So I want to say that probably midway through my formal employment, so three years in, after having started learning, I started getting better clients, more quality clients. I started working on projects that were a little bit more exciting where the scope was a little bit bigger. That is probably when it dawned on me that I could turn it into something full-time and I would most probably really enjoy doing it full-time, because design really had my heart at that point.

So fast forward, I did end up leaving my job under very unsavoury circumstances, but it is a blessing in disguise because I wouldn't be anywhere else, and I wouldn't be doing anything other than what I'm doing right now because I really, really, really love being a part of the design community, so that's probably how it happened. Then I decided to make the bold and scary move of making a career pivot. I had planned for it somehow, so I had put savings aside because I wasn't sure what a creative solo entrepreneurial journey was going to look like, I wanted to make sure that I at least had a safety net if the first couple of months were going to be super quiet, not that I was full-time.

But then, I also ramped up my personal branding strategy and my marketing strategy and completely shifted my online persona because I used to tweet about anything and everything to do with my regular life. But I was like, "No, I want for people to know me as a full-time graphic designer now, so I need to change how I speak, how I sound online," and that sort of thing, so I completely changed everything. I saved up money and I got a very good professional photo shoot. I worked on my personal branding. I worked on refocusing my content and everything like that, because I just knew that it wasn't going to be easy, but at least I needed to make sure that I put myself in the position where I could potentially win. So that's pretty much how I am where I am now.

Ian Paget: Okay. Okay. There's a lot to unpack here, so I think something that's important again to flag is this wasn't an overnight thing. You didn't just decide, "I'm going to be a graphic designer," and then next day go full-time. It was a gradual thing. So your story is actually quite similar to mine in that you found something that was of interest to you, you was learning it in your own free time and you was doing that gradually over are a number of years, so I think you mentioned three years into your full-time job. So over the space of three years, you can learn a lot, and I think it's really great now. When I started learning graphic design, I don't think YouTube was there, which makes me feel really old.

But when I started to learn graphic design, I found some videos, but it wasn't YouTube because I really don't think YouTube existed when I started doing this. But similar story in terms of learning at home, practicing, improving, it's a gradual slow thing. Over those three plus years, you were able to learn, practice, do work for friends and family, take on projects for real clients for small amounts of money, and then build up that portfolio so that when you did get to the point where something happened with your full-time job, you had a platform there already, you had experience already so that you could actually step down and make that leap.

Fungi Dube: Yeah.

Ian Paget: I think another thing that's good to flag up from your story is that you didn't just jump into it without any safety net. I think having a financial safety net is really important as well, and I also did the same thing when I took the leap to full-time, because when you eventually work for yourself, it can be quite scary, especially, there's even if you dabble in it, I was doing stuff part-time, going from doing a couple of days a week to being completely full-time. It is a bit of a jump and it's good to have that financial safety net. So if for whatever reason you don't get any clients, you don't need to go into panic mode because I think that's one of the worst things when you work for yourself is going into this, "Oh, my God, I need clients." You start getting really, you start taking on work that you shouldn't do. You start dragging your prices down, and actually you just end up getting into a situation. But when you've got that safety net, you don't need to panic because you're going to be okay.

Fungi Dube: Exactly.

Ian Paget: Yeah. Another thing from what you mentioned, reputation is really important. So right from early on in your story, you decided that you wanted to do graphic design and you started to tell friends and family. I think that's a very basic thing, but that alone got you your first few clients. But now, when you eventually decided, or when you was in the position where you needed to work for yourself, you started to look at your social presence. Rather than just posting about life, you started to clean up and post about industry relevant stuff. I think what that does is it makes sure that everybody that's connected to you is aware that you are doing this graphic design thing now that you can help people in graphic design.

I think reputation is fundamentally one of the most important things, and what I feel as a graphic designer is your most valuable asset, because if people know you for doing something and they believe that you're very good, you will get opportunities because all you need to do is just make sure that more and more and more people know you for. If you have a strong reputation, then it's great. But I think as you do more and more work, work with bigger clients, get involved in more things, be that you're coming on this podcast, I think that should help towards reputation as well. But all these little things that you've done, so going out getting a professional photo shoot, that all helps towards how people perceive you and what your reputation looks like to potential clients.

Fungi Dube: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ian Paget: Okay. So you spoke about scrubbing up your social media and getting a photo shoot. Did that have an immediate impact for you?

Fungi Dube: It was definitely a slow burner, if I can say slow, like a climb up hill, because I think the common misconception is that people believe that once you have a plan and you start executing it, things are just going to happen. But the honest truth is that not all of us go viral overnight. It's actually a lot of hard work that goes into this and you have to be prepared for it to take a little bit longer. So I did these things and I think that I was probably in that position I was like, Oh, sure," because everything looks squeaky clean and looks good. I should just blow up and everything should just work," but that's not how it works because then it means that you've got to consistently produce good, quality work.

You have to consistently get your message out there. You have to join communities. You have to engage with other people in the community, and that is something that is progressive. So it definitely did help because when it got to that point where I was like, "Oh, a lot more people are seeing my work," or, "Someone retweeted my work," or, Someone shared my work on LinkedIn," it did help that I did have that professional outlook or I guess that professional look, because I had at all of those foundational steps in place before I actually started doing anything else. But that is not to say that a good profile picture or a good head shot is going to get you there. You definitely have to fit in all the work and make sure that you're a patient enough for the process and you trust the process because it is going to take some time for you to get to where you need to get to.

Ian Paget: Yeah. I appreciate the honesty. Again, I can very much relate with that, because there's things that you're going to do. I think everybody gets to that point where they want to reinvest in themselves in some way and doing all that work, it doesn't directly get you clients, but what it does do is improves people's perception of you.

Fungi Dube: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ian Paget: I think, going from having maybe a scrappy portfolio or bits and pieces all over the place to suddenly having this really nice website with a decent portfolio, with a decent photo shoot and all this stuff, what that does is it doesn't attract clients, but it does probably increase your conversion rate and gives you a stronger platform to ask for more money because people see you in a different way.

Fungi Dube: Yeah.

Ian Paget: It goes back to what I said about reputation, like how do people perceive you? So early on, you actually mentioned that you got some work because somebody recommended you to them and they specifically said, "You are just starting out, so she's going to be cheap."

Fungi Dube: Yeah.

Ian Paget: That was how people perceive you because you are new, you are just starting out and they know that they could take advantage of that. There's nothing wrong with that, but that's how people start out. But now you've got to this point where you've got more experience and you want to show the world that you are confident, you know what you're doing, you're going to be able to provide a professional experience. I'd like to think at that point when you did get clients, more people were saying yes, or you were able to ask for more money or this sort of stuff.

Fungi Dube: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, definitely. With time, you definitely do get to that point where, like you were saying, how people generally online perceive you changes because of how you have positioned yourself because of how you present your work. So you are in a position where you can command higher prices, and you're also in a position where naturally clients start to gravitate more towards your work because they are looking for your specific service because you have put in the time to make sure that people are aware that you do that specific thing and you do it really well.

Ian Paget: Yeah. It sounds like as well with a lot of what you learned, so like we were saying earlier in the conversation, when you start out, you don't know anything, literally don't know what you need to do and you are frantically learning. There's all this stuff online. There's just endless amounts of things, and I don't know where this would've came from so maybe you can elaborate, but it sounds like you started to understand marketing and positioning and all this stuff, was that learned from books or is that, again, from YouTube?

Fungi Dube: So I think it was a bit of both, actually, where you start tapping into other people's marketing strategies. So I was on Instagram and there are a lot of amazing carousels that people put out of how to build a strong personal brand, like make sure you do this, how to develop a marketing strategy. So I would follow those accounts and just tap into their wisdom, but I would also watch YouTube and I'll read books. One of the books that really helped me is called This is Marketing by Seth Gordon, where he talks about you cannot be seen until you learn how to see. I think it's such a brilliant book because it just shows you that in order for people to be aware of what you do, you have to be visible.

If you're hidden and if they have no trace of what you do, they're never going to know that you can do exactly what they need to be done. So I just got resources from different places and I applied that to my own personal strategy. Also, bearing a mind that everyone is different and we all sound different and look different and our work is different and that sort of thing. So I needed to make sure that it was something that I could tailor to eventually where I wanted to be and how I wanted people perceive me and my work.

Ian Paget: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative). Again, I think we have a really similar journey in terms of how we learn. I think people that are self-taught go down this same rabbit hole. So like we've already spoken about, you taught yourself the graphic design skills initially with Photoshop, but then you went down a rabbit hole that I think a lot of designers do where you become fascinated with marketing, with branding. There's so much stuff, there's so many books, there's so many videos, there's so many podcasts, there's loads of information out there. I think if you are curious like we both are, then you just end up going down this rabbit hole and just learning and consuming and really studying in different areas and-

Fungi Dube: Yeah.

Ian Paget: Yeah. I think we're very fortunate that the internet makes this staff a lot easier-

Fungi Dube: Yeah, it does-

Ian Paget: ... because it's just endless resources to actually learn how to be successful as a graphic designer or a business owner even.

Fungi Dube: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Definitely. I believe that everyone out there who is probably thinking of going on a software journey should utilise all the free resources that are at their disposal before they even pay a dime for a paid course. Paid courses are amazing and they're extremely beneficial, but if you know that you're in a position where you can't spare some money to pay for something, then just Google, go on YouTube, go on Instagram. There is a wealth of resources that you can tap into and you can experiment and see what works, see what doesn't work, and eventually come to a place where you have something that is completely custom and works effectively for you and your personal brand.

Ian Paget: Yeah. I think that's a good point actually with training courses, because what you tend to find is that all of the content in a lot of training courses, I'm not saying all of them, there's probably some which are incredibly valuable, but usually the advantage of paying for a training course is that it just saves time, because they've collated everything and put it into bite-size chunks that you could probably sit down and learn in a few hours or in a couple of days. But when you go down the Google and YouTube route, it just takes more time because you need to dig for the information and you don't always know what you don't know. So you don't always know which avenue you need to go down, but you can pretty much learn everything for free.

So if you don't know what you need to know, go into the Logo Geek Facebook group and ask, say, "I want to become a graphic designer, what's a good starting point?" Somebody will provide some kind of mentorship. You don't need to tell them that they're mentoring you, but you can ask questions and ask people to point you in the right direction, and then that will help you to understand what you need to learn. You can then Google that, you can go onto YouTube. It's pretty cool, actually, when you consider that you don't really have to go to university to learn any of this stuff. You just need to be curious and just willing to actually just go out there and find out this stuff for yourself.

Fungi Dube: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Ian Paget: Cool. So one of the other topics I want to go into is, so on your Instagram you mentioned that you are elevating African narrative through modern design. Can you tell me more about that?

Fungi Dube: Yeah, definitely. So as I was progressing in my graphic design journey, I encountered a book by Saki Mafundikwa called Afrikan Alphabet, and I was completely drawn in. My interest was immediately piqued because I, up until that point did not realise that there was actually a way in which we could use design or more personally as a young African creative, I didn't realise that I could actually tap into my roots and channel that into design. So when I went through that book, I was completely in awe, but so inspired. Up until that point, I spoke about how the beginning of my journey was very chaotic, so I did anything on everything. I designed. I don't know, the most random things. You could have come up to me and said, "Hey, my little French bulldog is having a birthday party, can you make an invite?" And I'll be like, "Yeah."

Ian Paget: It's the way it is, you need to start somewhere.

Fungi Dube: Yeah. I can definitely do that. So I didn't have a sense, I wouldn't say a sense of direction, but I didn't really know who my target market was. I didn't really know what kind of work I wanted to do, but when I encountered that book, it completely changed my life. So from that moment, I also then started doing my own research and it dawned on me that when we actually look at African expressionism, we see it a lot in photography, in music videos, in fine arts, but we rarely see it in brand design. We rarely see it in UI/UX design. We rarely see it in, I don't know, in web design. So I knew for sure that I wanted to be able to tap into that, not only because it's something that wasn't really seen, but because I wanted to be able to inject part of who I am into my work. I wanted for other young Africans or Africans-at-large to be able to see themselves in my work as well.

So when I'm talking about elevating African narratives, I'm talking about celebrating how multiverse African narratives are, how rich the culture is, how electric the colours are, how energetic the patterns are, the vibrancy of African culture. That is what I wanted to be able to bring to the forefront. So whether it is through logo design, whether it's through a packaging design and now through web design, I want to be able to tell a story, a story that will resonate with the hearts of Africans on the continent, Africans in the diaspora, people at large who are just interested and learning more about our stories and what we have to say, and just having fun with it and making sure that I represent it in the best and most gracious way possible, but also make it just so stunning and so beautiful, because I think that there's just so much to explore.

So it's something that is so dear to my heart, I wake up every day and I eat, breathe, while elevating African narratives, I'm always thinking of ideas and ways in which I can tell a different story, not necessarily just from my home country, I'm Zimbabwean, but from everywhere and making sure that I also put in enough research and that sort of thing, because a lot of the resources are not readily available or accessible. So if I need to have conversations with different people, conversations with Simon, for example, or I need to look for someone Instagram and be like, "Hey, I encountered this image. Would you know what this mean?" And that sort of thing, then I'm willing to do the extra work for that. I go out to a lot of craft markets, to a lot of art galleries. I talk to elders in my community. I talk to my grandparents. I'm always very curious and I want to know more and to find out more and to see how best I can explore different ideas. So that is what that means in its full realm. It's a very short statement, but it's very packed because there's a lot of heart and a lot of soul. Yeah. A lot of culture and a lot of respect and grace and beauty that goes into it.

Ian Paget: Yeah. I know if listeners go on your website, you share quite a few different things. So you mentioned about the textiles. Over the last day or so, I've watched a couple of other interviews and videos that you've done, so I was aware that you was probably going to mention that Afrikan Alphabet book and some of what's in there is stunning, and a lot of the textiles, the patterns and the colours and all this stuff is things that personally, I'm not familiar with. A lot of this stuff that you're sharing and I know our mutual friend, Simon Charwey? Is that how you pronounce his surname?

Fungi Dube: Yeah.

Ian Paget: Yeah. So something that Simon's been doing over the past two years, couple of years now, but he's been, I felt, taking lead on sharing African design and raising awareness of African design, because there's a lot of stuff that he's pulled out. It's like, I've never seen any of this. For me, this is all new and it's really inspiring and it's nice to see people like you and Simon raising awareness of this and sharing it and being able to, I guess, represent the origin of African design. I think that's really inspiring to see.

Fungi Dube: Thank you.

Ian Paget: Something I do want to ask you, and I don't know if this is the case, but I did watch a video that Simon did.

Fungi Dube: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ian Paget: He mentioned about design history. So graphic design history in the UK, in Europe, I didn't go to university, but most books I read it is very American or European. It focuses on Swiss design or American design.

Fungi Dube: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ian Paget: You don't see a lot of the African graphic design at all in any of these books, unless you get a book like what you said, the Afrikan Alphabet, is it the case that even in the design history of Africa that it is also very Eurocentric?

Fungi Dube: So I would not say that the history of African design is Eurocentric because when we look at Africa as a whole, the way that different crafts are represented is so, so diverse. So you referred to textiles, right?

Ian Paget: Yeah.

Fungi Dube: Of which there could be some European influence later on in how they were made and produced in that sort of thing, but looking at it at grassroots level when it started, it was all very intuitive. It was women in the community who were coming up with these amazing patterns and giving meaning to them and then passing that on to their daughters so that they could keep it within the bloodline and everything like that. So even the different ways of making them and the innovations with the dyes and you using natural products, like bark from trees and that sort of thing, that was all intentional, but very creative work.

So there definitely is that aspect of saying that when it comes to just crafts and Africa, I don't consider them to just be crafts. I consider them to be actual design systems, because we see geometry. We see symmetry, we see colour compositions, complex layouts, that is all design, right?

Ian Paget: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Fungi Dube: We can probably, not probably, we can also then liken this to more conventional design fundamentals, like hierarchy or colour balance and that sort of thing, yet it already existed within African context. So the only thing now is that we obviously are in a position where we do not have a lot of written material that accounts for African design systems, because all the books that we read, the books that you read are the books that I've read. The resources that you have used to learn are the same resources that I've learned, but what's now a little bit more different is saying that I'm going to take all that information I've learned, and I'm going to apply it to a context that makes more sense to me, and to a context that I hope that other Africans will be able to resonate with. Ultimately, down the line, and Simon also talks about this, we need to be in a position where we decolonize design education in the sense that we need to have our own books as Africans. We need to have our own systems.

We need to document all of these "crafts" that have existed because they are design systems. They are design systems in their own, so we need to be able to have documentation for that and have future learners learn from that but also, have some form of modernism that allows for us to still deliver relevant work in 2022, in 2025, in 2040. So it's definitely a big topic and there's a lot that can be said about it, but we are currently learning from a very Eurocentric standard, but I think what makes a difference nowadays is taking all those design fundamentals that we know, and we learn, and we apply them to our different context. So whether it's going to be minimalist, which is also still so beautiful, but it would not necessarily apply in my world because I believe that there's nothing minimal about being an African. We have very big personalities. We're very loud. We're very colourful, vibrant people, so the design may look a little bit different, but it is still sound at the end of the day. So that's what I would say.

Ian Paget: Yeah. So I actually find the position that you and Simon and other graphic designers in Africa are in now, to be honest. I've spoken to Simon a lot. I know we're mutual friends with him, but you're in this awesome position where none of this stuff is documented to the same degree that a lot of Swiss design and American graphic designers, you guys can actually take lead on that and actually create all of the study material that people can use and apply, which I find really exciting that you guys are in that position where you can do that. I know Simon's taking the bull by the horns on that and leading that and pulling that together and documenting all of that stuff, which is really cool.

But also, I think it's important as well, because in my last job, I used to do web design and we had this client from, I think they were based in Abu Dhabi, so not from the UK. So most of the clients that I work with are UK-based, and what that means is that I understand the culture here. I understand what people are like. I understand the graphic design sense here, so I know what people are used to and they expect, and all that sort of stuff. But working with that client in Abu Dhabi, obviously, there are differences in the culture. So what I designed initially wasn't right for them. I included pictures that were, I guess, what I'm more familiar with, but they require different pictures, that type of thing.

Fungi Dube: Yeah.

Ian Paget: Yeah, I learned a lot from that experience. Also, just working with a client was a different experience. In Abu Dhabi, the more direct, the more firm in terms of how they communicate with people, so it was very much a learning experience for both the account managers and the graphic design team. By the sound of it in Africa, you mentioned about more colour and all this sort of stuff and I think it's important that when you are creating work that's directed towards people in Africa that you have an understanding of that, and you can apply that to your work in a way that seems appropriate. So it doesn't really make sense that the study material that you're learning from is very Eurocentric, that we are learning from the same material, because actually there should probably be other material that you should be learning as well. It sounds like right here, right now, that material just doesn't exist.

Fungi Dube: Yeah.

Ian Paget: So stuff that you are doing, just these conversations now and what Simon's doing, hopefully it's raising awareness that this stuff needs to be created.

Fungi Dube: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ian Paget: I think it's really exciting to be in a position where actually you guys can go, "I can take lead on this. I can be the one that documents this."

Fungi Dube: Yeah.

Ian Paget: In a way, you guys can go down in history as being some of the pioneers of graphic design in Africa just purely because of the position that you're in, which I think is really exciting.

Fungi Dube: Yeah. I like when you say it like that, I just got goosebumps, actually.

Ian Paget: Yeah. II've spoken to Simon about this type of thing, and when he was talking about potentially doing, I was saying similar to things to him and he's work really hard and I sense the same in you as well. So I think you guys should team up and maybe pull some other people in and just continue going down that road of pulling this stuff out and sharing it and showing people, because you know what you spoke about how people learn how to do the textiles, I didn't know any of that stuff.

The only way of knowing that is by having a conversation with you. So those stories can be documented and pulled out, and that can become very much part of your identity, which I feel you're already going down the avenue anyway. But personally, I think you should push it more because it is interesting content, but actually puts you in a position where you are a leader in that space. You have that perspective with that's very much you, and share that with people that just don't get exposed to it. I could never write about that just because I don't have access to that, but you do, which is cool.

Fungi Dube: Yeah, no. I'm literally getting goosebumps as you're talking because it's definitely an exciting time and there's so much potential, so much.

Ian Paget: It is.

Fungi Dube: Yeah.

Ian Paget: It is exciting. We've all got the internet now, and like I said, when I started learning graphic design, which it was like 15 years ago, all of these materials didn't exist. There was no YouTube. All of these things that were used to now like Facebook, Google, YouTube, they are really new in the grand scheme of things.

Fungi Dube: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ian Paget: It's such new technology, and that's given us this platform to tell stories about anything and you guys have all this material that could be shared. So I'm excited for you, for Simon and for anyone else listening that's got that African background because get that stuff out, share it. You don't have to follow the standard books that everyone follows, you can resurface all of this stuff and take ownership of it.

Fungi Dube: Yeah.

Ian Paget: It's cool.

Fungi Dube: Yeah, definitely.

Ian Paget: Cool. Well, I think that's probably a good point to wrap up the interview. It's been absolutely amazing chatting with you. I've really enjoyed speaking about how you pivoted from studying as a scientist and then becoming a graphic designer, becoming more focused as you go, and a little bit of a overview of some of the African design stuff as well. So thank you so much for coming on. It's been an absolute pleasure to have a chat with you.

Fungi Dube: Thank you so much for having me. It's also been super cool hearing your story, and it's even more cool that we seem to have gone through the same kind of...

Ian Paget: Very similar.

Fungi Dube: Oh, yeah.

Ian Paget: I hope anyone listening who wants to become a graphic designer has been inspired by that, because I really do think that's just the genuine path, just gradually learn and get sucked into all the resources that are out there. You don't have to do it overnight. It can be a gradual, slow thing, but both of us here, we both, I think are successful graphic designers, but we taught ourselves. So hopefully, someone listening out there can do the same.

Fungi Dube: Yay.