Olaolu Akeredolu-Ale popularly known as Olaolu Slawn has designed the English FA Cup trophy to be displayed on the 2024 final between Manchester City and Manchester United at the Wembley on Saturday.
Here are some things to know about Olaolu Slawn:
1. Born in Lagos, Nigeria on 24 October, 2000, Olaolu Slawn is a British-Nigerian designer and artist.
2. Most of his works include spray paint, large-scale pop art canvases, graffiti, caricatures and murals.
3. The 23-year-old became the youngest person to design the Britannia statuette for the annual BRIT awards in 2023.
4. In his late-teens, Slawn worked at Wafflesncream, Nigeria’s first skate shop, where he met his friends Leo and Onyedi at the shop, and the trio created artwork, skate together, and made films.
5. Slawn and his friends eventually created an apparel group named Motherlan, and their brand gained popularity in Nigeria and received recognition from Virgil Abloh.
6. In 2018, Slawn moved to London and enrolled at Middlesex University to study graphic design in 2019.
7. During the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, he began to paint, and would hand his artwork to people at parties and established a social media presence for his artwork.
8. He had his debut exhibition in September 2021 at Truman Brewery on Brick Lane.
9. In 2022, Skepta debuted his first painting on a collection for Sotheby’s auction organised by Slawn for charity.
10. Slawn was the statuette and set designer for the 2023 Brit Awards.
11. On May 22, 2023, Slawn opened BeauBeau’s Cafe, a family-run restaurant in East London that is named after his son.
