Wole Ajagbe
Multifaceted artist Wole Ajagbe combines care with craft in founding The Whiff Co., a company that curates sustainable gift boxes from local artisans whose themes change along with the seasons.
The vision was that I could meet people in the intersection of time and creativity. Let’s say you want to give someone a really meaningful gift, but you don’t have the time to compile or make it yourself—but you also don’t want to just grab something off of a shelf. That’s where The Whiff Co. comes in. It’s curating these gift boxes from local makers and shipping them to people you care about.
I do a lot of cultural research, finding out what’s trending, what people really resonate with from a gifting perspective, and then trying to find makers who are doing just that.
One of our most memorable gift boxes was from January 2017. It was meant to inspire someone to do something new. Inside, there was a hand-bound journal and a micron pen to write down ideas, a white stag pin, and finally a succulent that was tiny at the time, but would grow with you. And at the end of the year, you could look back and say, “I grew a little bit, the succulent grew a little bit, and I have this personal log of my journey over the course of this year.”
The Whiff Co.’s music playlists are a separate experience from the gift boxes. It evolved out of this time of Spotify’s zeitgeists, and the way we consumed music as a whole was through these playlists. We know that every season has a zeitgeist of some kind, so it was about creating a playlist that crafts and sets the mood before each gift box comes out.
While my photography had been something I was quietly crafting since high school, it didn’t have a practical element until The Whiff Co. came around. My Instagram feed is somewhere between a gallery and a visual diary. I wanted it to feel like a catalog in a sense where you have that block of text that sits next to the photo. That’s where the diary aspect comes in, noting what key aspects went into creating the image itself—focal length, aperture width, and shutter speed. It provided a bit of transparency. My biggest [theme] is relatability. Can I almost see myself in that photo? If a photo mimics the colors I would see in reality, I think it instantly makes the image a lot more immersive.
It’s easy to view me as a singularity. I like having control over creativity and the end product. But I would not be where I am today without the support of the people I’ve had a chance to work with along the way. The maker industry is huge, and I think The Whiff Co. represents a missing link between maker and buyer. I want people to know that I’m not doing all of this to create a brand for myself, but to add a voice to a conversation that is significantly bigger than me.
Right now, we have a market of people who aren’t just looking for a product that serves a good cause, but something they can genuinely feel good about. Things that last a long time, things that have a story that they can pass along. I think The Whiff Co. as a whole speaks to that kind of person: someone who’s looking for the sentimental in the everyday.
