Meet the Nigerian
Product Designers
Behind a New Brand
of Minimalism.
NIGERIAN
MINIMALISM
by AYODEJI ROTINWA
About a week ago, Nifemi Marcus-
Bello, a 30-year-old Nigerian product
designer, walked into a high-end
lifestyle store in Victoria Island, Lagos’s
central business district. He asked if
they might stock his “LM Stool,” named
after a dear friend.
The two-legged stool—created by
bending, welding, and laser-cutting
metal—looks weightless, and comes in
two colors. It’s currently on view in the
Venice Design 2018 show held during
the the 16th Venice Architecture
Biennale. But the store, which has
acquired a global reputation as a
destination for a rich range of goods
from the across the African continent,
declined to stock it.
It is not “African design,” they said. And
the meeting was over.
Over a banana milkshake at Vestar
Coffee, Marcus-Bello tells me that he’s
since been wondering what, exactly, an
African design or aesthetic might be.
He is Nigerian; African. The stool was
conceptualized and produced in Lagos.
He first learned design under the
tutelage of street-side welders and
carpenters, artisan masters of Lagos’s
informal economy. It was this local
knowledge that gave him an edge
when he studied for Bachelor’s and
Master’s degrees in Product Design at
the University of Leeds. “I use what is
around me to create,” Marcus-Bello
says. “I am not copying from anywhere
else. I exploit our process. The process
he is referring to is one of functional
chaos—a very familiar Nigerian reality
—where the manufacturing industry is hobbled by a laundry list of
challenges, from outdated production techniques to power outages. But
somehow, it still works. Marcus-Bello makes do with what he has, and his
furniture reflects the resilient spirit Lagosians are known for. (The LM
Stool is designed around the production process of a factory that creates
generator casings, which cover the ubiquitous machines that provide
electricity.)
When the store referred to “African design,” I suspect they meant a
stereotypical formula: A dash of animal prints; a mish-mash of bright
patterns; a semblance of the baobab tree. But Marcus-Bello is part of a
small class of Nigerian product designers redefining this imaginary ideal—
and perhaps reinventing what good design looks like, period.
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