Favour Godfrey is a Visual Storyteller and Designer with strong focus on brand communications and visual identity development.

He has been described by notable branding executives as the King of identity designs, an alias he has lived up to by crafting timeless and functional identities for many leading brands.

With almost 10-years experience in graphic designing he evolved the design philosophy of afro-urban futurism and pays close attention to the Ockams Razor theory of design.

His has design solutions for clients including the Government of Lagos state, SSA to President Buhari on Job Creation and others have been applied across different platforms.

He is a co-founder and head of visual communication at Eikon Grae and consults for numerous businesses across several industries, large corporations and startups.

Having etched his name in the sands of the creative time, his wealth of knowledge on the pains of creatives cannot be overemphasized.

Speaking on the challenges creatives usually grapple with, he said; “Imagine you wake up tomorrow and find out a favourite artiste of yours is dead. You google it just to be sure and find out he/she committed suicide? The world has experienced this time and time again and science now has to question if there is a link between being depressed and being creative! If you ever wished to have the brain of someone whose work you admire, make another wish, because the mind comes with the brain and oh dear, beauty covers the ashes.”

“There’s glam in the shout from fans, the many “wow, you’re good”, the “he is the best of his kind” and the “he designs from his soul”. What you don’t see is the sadness, the loneliness, the many hours plugged into melancholic music, the alcohol, and hard drugs, the binge eating, the sleeping to get rid of pain, the emptiness, the not feeling good enough, the numbness to life, nothing else at some point makes meaning anymore – all these just to bring beauty to you.”

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Speaking further, he said; “There’s so much this deep has to offer that it leaves us no choice but to dive in. Consciously or unconsciously, we fall in love with our craft, yet scaling many emotions just to bring an idea into reality. We can’t start talking about it because we don’t even want to accept it ourselves. We don’t talk about how relationships are affected.”

“We don’t talk about the frustration. We don’t talk about how even the best amongst us wants to give up in a closet. We don’t talk about the effect of being creative on our mental health. We don’t talk about how depression moves from a feeling to a state of being. It’s not depression that makes us creative but it just seems to bring the life to our creativity. Isn’t that ironic?”

He added; “Sometimes you see an emoji on our status updates, sometimes we go off and sometimes we post for the glam. Different people with different exhibitions of weird behavior. We’ve learnt to cope and not to escape, and coping is not a healing or helpful strategy, it’s a slow killer. It’s amazing how the state that takes away strength gives us energy.”

“Sometimes, something better than a feedback to a creative would go a long way, best is a real relationship – a bond in reality that lifts them from this deep. “It was great walking with you” Vs “You’re wonderful.”

“You see your money only pays the physical, your job stretches the mental. It takes us hours and days to deliver on a job or ideas you received in one minute. Trust me, if our bills included peace of mind, you wouldn’t be able to pay. We’re not proud; we’re just paid yet pained. A little understanding, a checkup, a gift, a text message, a word of encouragement will help.”

“While not every or not only creative experience this, while science is still trying to find the link, know it’s real here. Learn to speak up about it more and in more gestures than an open ear, the world should listen. I hope these words resonate with the creative, the client, and the crowd.”

Vanguard News Nigeria