Regular Format
Tidings #1: March 2025
I’m starting a monthly format for this journal called Tidings. I’ve been sending out these emails consistently, so why not commit to a schedule 🤷🏽♂️
Each edition will start with updates on each company - what we’ve been up to and what we’re looking forward to, followed by a curation of interesting visual references from the internet. Eye-brain candy.
We’ll close with a personal essay from the studio - myself or Princess. Not to give too much away, but this one is about New York!
I hope you enjoy it. Comments are open.
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Main Squeeze
Compression socks
Main Squeeze sales were low in Q1, but unsurprisingly. What we’ve done so far - influencer seeding and PR outreach - has yielded positive but slow results. The lesson here is to start marketing 3 - 4 months ahead of launching a new brand.
We completed our most important objective though, which was to hire an audience manager and growth consultant to optimise our social media and website. Caitlin used to work for Alexander McQueen and the agency we’re working with has a lot of experience scaling eCommerce businesses. Fingers crossed on Q2.
We’re also exploring retail opportunities and refocusing inventory and sales on the US, as they make up 70% of the compression socks market.
Hello World
Technology studio
Timi and I are working together again! Hello World Studios Inc. is now a registered company in the US, making experimental AI products.
Our first product is Fable, an iOS app that transforms any document into a podcast. We’re currently testing with the first set of users, and I find it very useful for digesting complex, boring documents e.g. rent agreements.
Samson now runs client operations for the studio, leading development for projects like grvl and Friends of 16. His team is a collective of part-time designers and engineers, similar to our original model.
Independent Arts
Creative Incubator
Eris and Ivie are shaping a new genre of animation! We’ve started production for EDH episodes 3 and 4 — if that doesn’t ring a bell, check out this press release.
IA is helping with funding, direction, and distribution, while the EDH team handles production and marketing. We’re making two episodes at once, so it’s a brand new process. Much to be excited about.
These upcoming episodes will really bring the universe to life. And they get to share this experience with their fast-growing community.
Highly recommend you check out their journal.
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This month’s links are themed around cultural identity, creative authenticity, the evolution of tradition, and the importance of historical preservation. Enjoy!
The responsibility of the image-maker
I think a lot about businesses as arbiters of culture and what role we play in creating and promoting authentic images of the communities we represent. This article by writer and curator Jane’a Johnson, the former director of the Photography Museum Amsterdam, was a timely read. I loved this retro image of the author’s intricately decorated teenage walls, with her sister pictured in front.
Agu Display
Font design is an increasingly growing practice among Nigerian designers, with exciting projects like Agụ Display that blend history, design and technology. Created by Seun Badejo, the typeface is a synthesis of Nsibidi symbols and contemporary decorative san-serifs. The website - designed by Studio Null - is an interactive treat, with exciting gimmicks that really bring the characters to life.
Fuji&Hakone
Fuji&Hakone is a streetwear brand that pays homage to vintage manufacturing and collegiate wear. Founded by Kodjo Glover-Akpey, a digital product designer in the UK, the clothes are produced in Japan using an old loop-wheeling technique. The brand leans into a “Black Japanese” aesthetic, with references to Yasuke - the famous Black samurai, and this cool photograph, probably taken in East London.
Afro Hair Styles Zine & Poster
Sandy Christ is a freelance illustrator and graphic designer based in the UK. In this collaborative zine, the German-Nigerian artist explores African hair styles, digging into their history and stories with a composition reminiscent of West African salons and barber shop posters. The zine is Riso-printed in two colours, which gives it a distinctive retro look.
Democratic Intuition (2013 - 2020)
I’ve been dreaming about art books. This one, by Botswana-born artist and professor Meleko Mokgosi, is called Democratic Intuition. The large-scale, multi-part project explores themes of democracy, power, and the everyday experiences of people in postcolonial southern Africa. Mokgosi’s project is not just a critique of Western democracy but a meditation on the nature of power, autonomy, and representation within postcolonial Africa, asking whether democracy can truly function in societies shaped by colonialism and inequality.
Souleyman Cissé
Malian filmaker Souleymane Cissé died on February 19, 2025. Recognised internationally as a pioneer of African cinema, he was the first director from sub-Saharan Africa to win a Cannes prize for his 1987 film Yeelen. I’d love to watch a documentary on this class of Russian-schooled West African filmmaking legends, but this post-humous essay from Sarah Jalani will do for now.
An African Design Canon
Homenka, a Nigerian design studio founded by Zoë Chinonso Ene, is integrating the ideals of Natural Synthesis into their practice. The team is documenting An African Design Canon, a visual repository of historical, everyday African product design. The collection is a cultural monument for long-lost creative practices and a trove of knowledge for practising artists.
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That’s it for the curated links. And now to some personal news…
I started a new job at HIFI!
We move money between the US, Europe, South America and Africa using stablecoins. I manage the Dashboard and help with customer service.
It’s so nice being an IC again man. I spent so much of my time teaching people how to work like me, and now I get to just do it. swoosh. And the team gets it. I get emojis and thank yous and nice compliments.
The job is very fast, scrappy, and high agency. It adds 45 minutes of call time to my calendar every week. The rest is async and ad-hoc, US hours. I prefer to work this way in Lagos; otherwise, I’ll be at the office in New York.
Now that I have a major responsibility, the studio is back on autopilot. I have 30 minutes of call time scheduled per company per week, which is easy to manage. Everything thing else is ad-hoc too, prioritised as needed.
We have good ownership on studio projects, but the teams are fragile and cashflow is still inconsistent. So even though I’m not thinking about the day-to-day, I’m waiting for things to get more established.
The new job also means the end of my London experiment. I’ll be moving back home (again). I’ll miss a lot about this city, especially being close to my friends. But I’m so glad to be rid of council tax.
Anyway, cheers to new beginnings.
See you around!
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Congratulations on the new ‘listing’. Just keep at it, everything will end in praise🙏
Cheers on the new job and being an IC again. As always grateful that you share your experiences 🥂🙏