'We should see'

However Saturday was going to end, it was nothing compared to be brief awkward moment, for me, of saying hi to him.

It's been 2 years now since that afternoon at WorkStation. It was Lagos Meet. October 13th, 2018 had a chilly morning I remember clearly. I just recently started navigating Lagos alone, and this was my second trip to the city.

Excitedly ordering an Uber from Isolo, the closest place I could find a friend to stay with, the price to Victoria Island was hiked. Having to meet my rider at Iyana-Isolo so he doesn't have to deal with the traffic entering Jakande's Estate.

I got to WorkStation incredibly early. I was excited—I can't remember what about, but it wasn't the awkward introduction I had previously described. I remember now. I was going to meet friends, people who we'd scheduled to get in touch. It was a familiar way of showing that you had interest in them.

"We should see", I said, ending the conversation with the sudden realisation that I am not good at "seeing". One of such promises had my thumbs on my phone, "I'm here now", I wrote beaming with smiles and a swag that I now think was incredibly stupid.

It was a brown patched with black sweater and some jean. I think I still have a picture.

"I'm here too", someone replied.

"Hey, hi, how are you?" Someone had walked up to me where I sat. I looked up at him curiously wondering how awkward the next few minutes were going to go.

"I'm Caleb. Abstract Onion", he said.

Caleb and I had been on a Graphic Design group created by a young designer, now late, for over a year. Easily stood out based off the quality of our work and the intensity of conversations we had on the group, yet, it felt strange seeing him stand beside me searching my eyes for some sort of assurance that we'd have a hearty conversations.

My thumbs to my body is Rome to Italy, independent with its own politics and government. It's unfair to expect the same vibe.

And so, the awkward greeting happened. Did I ease in? I don't know. I'd remember wriggling out of the conversation looking to stay alone for the rest of the day.

While I'd meet Osaretin, Henry Senpai, Abinibi, Coker, Ashiwaju Bada, Seyi Olusanya amongst a lot more people, the handshake with Caleb stays burned in my mental journal, like a half-smoked cigarette signature.

Caleb is amazing!

I wouldn't particularly see him again until this year, but he's amazing! Asa Coterie is only an icing on the cake for the capacity Caleb has.

As much as his shower thoughts represented an unfiltered part of his multilayered Onion, one of my favourite thing to look forward is listening to him speak. When it is about things he deeply cares about, his words (and tone) convey a certain depth of conviction irrespective of how irregular and all-over-the-place those ideas might be.

It was a 90-mins call of Caleb sharing his vast vision for the Coterie with me at about 1 AM. This is something I believed he probably did we more than half of the core team.

A standout memory was him teaching design thinking less than 3 years into the field at Semicolon, with precision the size of IDEO. "She's projecting herself", he said in response to Natasha Jen's talk on 'Design Thinking is Bullshit' one time. Another time, we had a lengthy ass argument on design and design thinking.

The conversation ended along the lines of:

Design Thinking doesn't promise the designer a safe step-by-step path to success. Design is chaos as much as it is organisation. Design Thinking connects both ends of the divide together.

That was 2018.

It's 2021 and that conversation was the bedrock of my understanding Agile Methodology as it relates to Brand Design.

What you see of Asa Coterie is a tip of a tip of the iceberg, and I'm glad to be a part of the team that'll bring it to you over the next decade.

Most importantly, I'm glad for that first hi!

Arigato, Caleb-san.

Good morning, Praise

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