In 2002, two Soweto boys, Thato Legwale and Dennis Ngwepe, registered as first year college students under the department of graphics and web design in Johannesburg. At this point we did not know that one day we would be the founders of a thriving graphics company. We went from being classmates, with a shared passion for web design and graphics, to very close friends and now family.
As graduation loomed a few years later, we had developed a strong drive, passion and hunger to make things happen creatively. In 2005 we decided to officially register a formal business. We named it: “Dowhile Creative Media Solutions.”
From inception, the company’s operations ran from a Shack in Meadowlands, Soweto. We had a single Pentium 2 computer on which all design work was carried out. Our shack was not only our office; once the work was done, it became our home. Following 10 years of hard work, the company evolved from Dowhile Creative Media to “Boyz From The Shack.”
Looking back, one of our clients once visited and, clearly shocked, he quipped: “Are you guys seriously creating our work from here? We never knew such work could be done in a shack.”
Notwithstanding our background, support from our clients grew. And we remember with a smile, how our first client, who we still work with now, paid us R250 for the first ever logo we designed for their business.
That first client, that first project and that first payment of R250 marked the beginning of a dream come true. Since then, we have never looked back. The strong drive, passion and hunger grew bigger and bigger as we realised that our fresh kasi creative and innovative designs are needed.
Form there, we went after our second, third, fourth, fifth clients and counting. In 2006 we decided to take real-life lessons in corporate environments in order to learn how to manage and run a business professionally. We sought jobs in the graphics industry to obtain relevant experience and knowledge as to how things are done in the corporate world.
Thato worked for one of the banks as a teller and later got a job to design a magazine. Dennis worked for a medium creative agency as a web designer.
In February 2007, Thato resigned to finish off what we had started and five months later, Dennis followed suit. We started pushing hard; marketing our services extensively. Equipped with the right skills we had happy clients, and more work. Our client base ballooned.
We then moved out of the shack in 2008 and got our first office in the Johannesburg CBD. This is who we are and this is what we do.
We are BFTS: the Boyz From The Shack