Nigel had bigger dreams than his software engineering job. Having breezed out of university into a secure job in tech, his feet were firm and steady on the middle rungs of a corporate ladder that he didn’t want to climb.
“I never hated my job, it was fine… and I worked with really smart people, but I just remember getting to a point where I didn't care about the job. I didn't care about getting any better than where I was, and I thought that was a bad place to be.”
With four years of ‘9 – 5’s under his belt, Nigel knew, “Before I get stuck, I have to leave”. He liked the idea of having his own business, one which would impact people positively and employ the creative skill that he knew was within him. His first attempt, a clothing brand started with friends, never took off; this knock-back, however, was the beginning of a promising path. With the group stripped back to just Nigel and his mate Lao, the duo soon realised the potential of their shared interests; specifically, Japanese culture and storytelling.
mayamada is the result: a brand of manga, telling the stories of Nigel and Lao’s characters, set within the ‘television network universe’ that they created. Manga is an artwork style that captured Nigel’s attention due to its Japanese roots and its wide, creative variety. Against the backdrop of a rather formulaic cartoon culture in the West, to Nigel, manga represented an exciting opportunity to home-grow his own characters and storylines from London, UK, infused with Japanese inspiration. This is a success story. Since beginning and building the brand, Nigel’s work has been showcased in the media by big hitters such as Vogue, GQ Magazine and The Evening Standard. Shiny accomplishments like these, however, are mere by-products of a deeper driving force. Nigel’s aim is that through mayamada, a social impact can be made; he feels that creativity is undervalued by the education system, yet, “We live in a world where people listen to music, watch films, read books, go to the theater. These are all industries where people make a living.” He strongly argues that creativity can be pursued in many ways:
“People assume that if you're doing something like programming, it's not creative. But like I said, in software engineering, I've worked with a lot of smart people and we had to come up with solutions to problems, creating something from scratch, building it and seeing it have impact. That's the definition of creativity!”
“I think young people in general, particularly from certain backgrounds, feel they are not creative, and that they have to go a certain way through school into a career that doesn't fit them. So, you've got people who might be great musicians or great artists and storytellers, but they’re being told ‘That's silly, do maths’. It just doesn't fit for them! There are multiple paths. So, I think the social impact I want is to inspire young people to have creative confidence and to help them find the path that works for them.”
mayamada’s unique, diverse set of characters – from a samurai monkey working as a chef, to an entrepreneurial, young rabbit trying to escape his small-town life – are creative expressions which usually stem from the life experience of its founder.
“In terms of inspiration, what I find interesting is that you can take bits of yourself… so I could start with a theme or a message, and then take bits of myself or other people that are related to that theme, and then create characters around that. So, you might have, like in ‘Hot Lunch’, for example, the main character Taishi. He’s a tiger who is essentially trying to change the status quo, and he has these big plans, but he needs people to help him make those plans happen… and that's a little bit like myself, in terms of having this brand, having these big plans, but needing people around me to help make it happen.”
Enter, Social Ark.
It was 2015 and Nigel had already established mayamada; he had produced some comics but wanted to take the next step towards his vision for a social impact – for him, this meant running workshops. While looking into applying for a grant to fund his mission, Nigel met Lisa, our CEO. In these days, we didn’t yet exist as a charity; in fact, as Lisa’s vision for Social Ark grew and materialised, Nigel was part of the journey, becoming one of the first projects that we worked with!
“I showed Lisa some of my comics and told her that I was working on running workshops. Then, she looked at the work that I was doing and she offered to help.”
“The biggest impact that Social Ark had was to help me shape and deliver my workshops. Practical things, too, like putting together a proposal, putting together a funding bid (or a better funding bid than I was doing by myself!) - so allowing me to get more money, and helping me be more effective in terms of preparing the workshops. Since then I've been able to build on that, and I’m now doing a lot of workshops around London!”
These workshops, called ‘The StoryBoard’, run either as ‘one-offs’ or in longer series of multiple sessions in schools and youth centres, with the aim of inspiring creativity in young people. In one-off workshops, Nigel teaches from his own expertise, encouraging the young people to utilise his trusted techniques for creating and developing characters. In recent years, with the help of Social Ark, he has secured funding for longer term projects from BBC Children in Need, allowing him to reach out to more young people over a 3-year period in Lewisham!
Another of mayamada’s initiatives is GamePad, a gaming event, designed not only to promote Nigel’s brand and characters, but to change society’s narrative around video gaming. To follow this vision, GamePad is uniting young people into in-person social communities, where all are welcome, and the sociable attraction of gaming is clear to see. Social Ark were able to help Nigel by supporting these events and helping him to secure sponsorship for running an event in the Grenfell area, shining a light at a dark time for that community.
While much of our work here at Social Ark is to do with helping people kickstart new things, our work with Nigel has been different. However accomplished somebody might be, like Taishi the tiger from Hot Lunch, everyone needs a support network to help make things happen. Before Social Ark, Nigel already had a fantastic, creative business… but through helping with his next steps, Social Ark has helped to translate Nigel’s talent and drive into the real-life outworking of his mission to see creativity flourish.
It has been a pleasure to be involved with mayamada and, as Nigel plans for the brand’s promising future, we’re excited to be on board!
By Will Washington
