Mentorship Program

Background

When DearDesigner started fully in May 2019, our goal was fixated at making the Nigerian designer maximize the experience, insights, and knowledge within the community to eventually lead a better career. While executing this mission, we noticed that there is an experience gap in the industry and we set out to proffer a way around this.

As much as there are a plethora of resources on the internet that have made mastering design easier compared to what it was some years back, having someone in your corner that could provide some necessary guide as regards career, business, project, challenges.

Beyond the fact that this could be a “pass the torch moment”, we want to create a safe space for young designers to express their fears and learnings as they navigate the industry.

That is why we decided to try this, try because we haven’t done it before and there might be some potholes on the road but yes we will surely learn, iterate and come back to the road, after all, we are all designers working towards perfect solutions.

How it works

The mentorship would last for 3 months (August – October 2020) of which each mentor has agreed to commit between 45minutes – 1 hour weekly for reviews, conversations, etc.
Application status would be communicated via mail on the 25th of July, 2020.

Relationships between mentors and mentees will be treated as a professional one.

Mode of communication would be chosen by individual mentors – this includes one or more of email, instant messaging, virtual meeting platforms, phone calls, etc.

Who is eligible

Designers:

learning and developing in any of the following fields:
Brand, Product, Digital Arts & Illustration, Graphic Design & Art Direction, Motion Design,
Industrial Design.
with less than 2 years of professional experience
with a Portfolio or samples of design works done
who are Nigerians
with knowledge of at least one professional design tool appropriate for your area of practice

taking design as a core practice and career

that can commit a minimum of 4 hours to interact with and attending to possible tasks from mentors

with a strong case (or reason) to be mentored

Requirements for Application

For your application, we expect that you know exactly why you want to be mentored. Being clear with why you want to be mentored and what you expect to learn would greatly determine the jury’s decision.

Our mentors would be giving their time and experience to help you, we also expect you to reciprocate such investment by using such knowledge as this is what would make it worth it for them.