In our latest edition of our Business Showcase series, we talk to Indigo Illusions, a company based at The Ideas Factory (NUA) in Norwich. They recently attended our Activate workshop series, which took them through the lean startup method, and helped them define their business model.

To find out more about what business support workshops we have coming up across Norfolk and Suffolk, you can visit our Eventbrite page here. Alternatively, you can always contact the HIL team via 01953 859100 or info@hethelinnovation.com


Who are you and what is Indigo Illusions?

We are a video marketing agency that specialises in motion graphics, 2D animation and video production. We are a startup company run by three post graduates from the Norwich University of the Arts BA Animation course. Our aim is to help businesses grow and help them voice their individual identities through content creation. Everyone has their own unique voice and we want to help them share it to a wider audience.

Indigo Illusions Showreel 2019

What inspired you to start your own business?

We all worked together throughout university and with a wide range of different skills between us, we found something special about working as a team, so we wanted to continue this collaboration. This combined with our shared passion for storytelling and wanting to be our own bosses made it feel like the natural move to go into business start up. None of us originally set out to become business owners but with wanting to stay within the heart of Norwich, have more creative freedom within our work, as well as still getting to collaborate together, it felt like the right path for us all.

The Indigo Illusions team

What experience do you have in the sector?

We all have a Bachelor of Arts degree in Animation and a mixture of experience with design, animation, camera work and editing outside of this. We had less experience in business but have been building our knowledge as we go along. We all find learning on the job to be the most beneficial, learning from any mistakes to be able to be the strongest company we can be.

As individuals both Lucy and Jake had previous freelance work experience as well as working in different teams and myself (Heather) worked on a BBC/BFI funded short film over summer 2018. To be able to gain this experience in a creative working environment was the most beneficial to us all and got us all excited about the idea of being able to do something similar.

What skills are you hoping to develop over the next 12 months to support your business?

We all are constantly aiming to continue to build our skills as business owners and directors. As we all did a degree in animation at the arts school, the business side isn’t something we had much knowledge on starting out just under a year ago. We are learning as much as we can, from whoever is willing to help us, much like Hethel, who have been a great help in us understanding our business and target market on a deeper level. To continue to learn from people like this is our aim to become as business savvy as we possibly can be.

What are you hoping to achieve in the next 12 months?

We want to continue to grow and connect with more companies to help them grow their voices online. But we also want to start a range of more personal projects. We already have plans for a workshop for college students that may be interested in the idea of studying animation or as a career path. This is so they are able to give it a go and connect with other like minded individuals. We also have already started filming for our latest personal project that celebrates the local culture and creatives in Norwich, as well as continuing to make plans for various passion projects down the line including both short films and animations.

Finally of course we just want to continue expanding and perhaps offer as many opportunities to as many people as we can who share interests in similar areas. Our company has already adapted and changed shape in the last 6 months and we hope to continue growing and branching out into different areas to use all of our skills. A personal goal of mine is for us to eventually set up our own stop motion studio and offer this style as part of Indigo Illusions.