The harmattan tree
School assignment: draw a tree in harmattan season. I was the only one who drew it bare — no leaves, one dead leaf falling. 9.5/10 and the teacher’s congratulations. The first time I understood I notice what others don’t.
About
Designer, builder, shipper — working out of Lomé.
Ten years designing identities, editorial systems, and digital products for pan-African institutions, NGOs, startups, and independent clients. I care about the work landing — not just looking right.
Story
I'm Elom Kaizer — senior designer, builder, and shipper working between Lomé and the rest of the world. Ten years in, I still care about the same thing: making complicated ideas land on the page, on the screen, and in the room.
My practice sits at the intersection of editorial craft, brand systems, and production code. I design institutional reports, pan-African forum identities, digital products, and the templates that keep non-design teams consistent long after a project ships.
I think in systems. I ship what I design. I like constraints — budgets, deadlines, multilingual audiences, non-technical stakeholders — because they force real decisions. What I don't like is work that looks expensive and solves nothing.
Based inLomé, Togo · GMT
Experience10+ years
LanguagesFrançais · English · Éwé
CurrentHead of IT, SSA
My storyAge 7 Childhood Age 10 Age 17 2013 The next day The early years One brief 2015 2016–17 2021 Today
Antennas from scratch
Cartoons and comics were my escape, and our means were modest — so I built antennas to catch the channels. The maker started there: if it doesn’t exist, build it.
The cyber café
First time seeing a computer, through a cyber café window. My friends and I pooled our pocket money every month to rent one by the hour. No money for computer school — the café was the school.
The PC that kept breaking
After my baccalauréat, my father gave me an aging IBM PC running Windows XP. It broke constantly; repairs cost 5,000 FCFA and lasted two days. After the third shop visit I asked my uncle for his Windows CD and his course notes — he’d done the maintenance training, never practiced it. I diagnosed the machine myself: the hard drive was too old to hold an OS. My IT career started by fixing what kept failing.
One night with Inkscape
Working as a relationship marketer, I watched our IT & graphics lead give a stunning presentation. He showed me Inkscape and said the course was inside the software. I installed it that night, finished the course, and shipped my first designs before sunrise — on a hand-me-down Compaq that would carry my first four years of practice.
The Photoshop stunt
Our head of training asked me to teach him Photoshop. I had never used Photoshop. I downloaded it and a course that evening, and taught the class the next morning. Fast learning has been my unfair advantage ever since.
While everyone laughed
Back then, people laughed — above all my father, who still isn’t quite sure what I do for a living; for him the real studies were economics. I never doubted. There are hard seasons — brutal clients, empty months — and I have never once wanted to do anything else.
The Gates pitch
My CEO asked for what I thought was a small training deck. It turned out to be the funding pitch for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She called me afterwards: the grant was approved — and, she said, partly because of me. I stopped calling this decoration the same day.
ElX — independent practice
Went independent with zero clients. Ten years later, 200+ brand identities have shipped under this name — for NGOs, startups and institutions across West Africa.
Hälsa & Awakening Togo
Full visual production for international NGOs — web, events, print — and 50+ young professionals trained in graphic design along the way. Teaching taught me more than producing.
SSA — Head of IT Division
From vendor to leadership: identity, digital infrastructure and full production of hybrid pan-African forums across 20+ countries. At this level, design gets judged by delegations, not by PDFs.
Design · Code · Make — from Lomé
I stay in Lomé on purpose: to prove this level of work can be built here, and to change mentalities along the way. Wallets, lamps, NFC business cards, engraved wood, mugs — if it doesn’t exist, I build it.
What I do
- 01Editorial & institutional design
- 02Brand identity & visual systems
- 03UX / UI design & art direction
- 04Pan-African event branding
- 05Infographics & digital storytelling
- 06Print & digital production pipelines
- 07Multicultural project delivery
Tools & stack
FigmaDaily driver
Design
Illustrator
Design
Photoshop
Design
InDesignEditorial
Design
After Effects
Design
Premiere Pro
Design
DaVinci Resolve
Design
Next.jsFramework
Web & Code
React
Web & Code
TypeScript
Web & Code
JavaScript
Web & Code
HTML
Web & Code
CSS
Web & Code
Payload CMS
Web & Code
ClaudePrimary
AI & Automation
ChatGPT
AI & Automation
Trae
AI & Automation
Notion
Productivity
Obsidian
ProductivitySelected experience
Apr 2021 — Present
Sustainable Solutions for Africa (SSA)
Head of IT Division · Former Head of Communication & IT — Lomé, Togo
Leading visual identity, digital infrastructure and full production of hybrid pan-African forums across 20+ countries.
Jun 2015 — Jun 2025
ElX — Independent Practice
Founder & Lead Designer — Togo · Remote
200+ brand identities shipped. Average +60% social visibility reported post-rebrand.
2022 — 2023
Universités Mondiales du Bonheur
Lead UX/UI Designer & Art Director — Remote
Visual system and digital direction across multiple international platforms.
Jan 2017 — Jul 2022
Awakening Togo
Graphic & Web Designer, Trainer — Lomé, Togo
Communication strategy and visual production for an international NGO. Trained 50+ young professionals in graphic design.
Aug 2016 — Jul 2021
Hälsa International
IT Lead & Graphic / Web Designer — Togo
Full visual support, web development, IT infrastructure, and multimedia coverage of hybrid and on-site events.
« You weave worlds that don’t usually meet. »
I took it as the most beautiful compliment. In Éwé country, kente is built thread by thread — so is every identity I build: strategy, form, code, one thread over the other until it holds.
They trusted me
UNHCR · ECREEE · Fonds Vert · APC Programme · SSA · Hälsa International · Awakening Togo · CONGAT / PADIE