“In some ways, business mirrors biology. As Darwin surmised, those who survive are not the strongest or the most intelligent, but the most adaptable to change.”
I read that quote in a business article right at the beginning of the covid outbreak about workplace emotional intelligence during the pandemic and it’s really stuck with me through this time.
Hey everyone! It’s been a while - in fact - actually an entire year since I last updated the blog. Good grief where did that time go. The world has changed a lot since I last sat down to write one of these. First of all, a message to whoever finds themselves reading this, I really do hope you are keeping well and safe, and that perhaps you are now finding more normality in your life as we are hopefully now emerging from the worst of the pandemic. Had you told me a year ago I would be writing my next blog post off the back of a 3 month global quarantine period I really wouldn’t have believed you.
Second of all, thank goodness that animation exists and zoom… and slack….and emails…. and google hangouts… and lots and lots of homemade cake… Those are pretty much the backbones of what’s been keeping us up and running during the lockdown period. We’ve been very blessed throughout the entity of this time, and I have been unbelievably grateful that we’ve had the capabilities to keep moving forward and develop more than ever as a small business. It’s heartbreaking to know that’s not been the same for every SME and I really hope as a community we can continue to support local business as we transition into a more difficult economical situation.
In fact more so it’s been a very special and unique little pocket of time that I don’t think we will ever get again. Being in our first and second year of running a business, our first and foremost energy has been going into working on as many projects as possible, running round like headless chickens going from shoot to shoot, meeting to meeting, using any time we’ve have to pick up as much work as possible so that we could get Indigo off the ground.
But all of a sudden we were forced to stop, and found ourselves from a fully booked April suddenly to a world at stand still and forced to staying at home. Like everyone I think a heavy feeling swooped over us initially of “what’s next?” …but as the weeks went on the lightbulb really switched on for us and we finally had time to redirect our energy into things we just didn’t have time to do before, like our company’s personal growth, developing our business strategies and building a genuine network. It was a massive eye opener in fact. There was so much we needed to learn and areas within the company we had to develop.
That’s when one of the most important things happened to us. We came under the wing of the most SPECTACULAR person we’ve met on this journey so far. Who has entirely changed the game for us and steered us in a total new direction. I suddenly realised the huge importance of what having a fantastic business mentor can do to your company. And how crucial it is to find someone who is really walking the walk. Someone who is actually living out their business advice and really striving and flourishing.
They also opened up the opportunity for us to meet and build up relationships with so many other business and agency owners in Norwich and London which has really pushed us to learn more and more quicker every day. It’s funny to think within social isolation we have been able to expand our network way more than before, but actually it’s the best time for people to hop on video calls as there are less distractions going on and more time to invest into building relationships.
“Animation has been the lifeblood for many agencies to remain strong and active through this time”
As I said before - thank goodness for animation… Within the climate of everything happening in the world, it’s been a good time for ourselves and other animation studios. With it being a progressive and trending medium that can be completed from the safety of your own home, lots of people are now seeing the importance it has to play in the world of marketing. Especially through a crisis where we are forced to hide away.
I said it over and over again at the beginning of this when people asked “how do you think you’ll find staying at home?” I would always respond with “We are animators…we are used to solitude”. Long days of being inside, grinding away for hours at the computer is honestly an animator’s normality.
With having to put our cameras to bed for a little while during the crisis, our animation inquires have increased rather significantly as it seems clearly much more marketing managers are depending on this medium to make noise online. In fact it’s been the lifeblood for many agencies to remain strong and active through this time.
Soooo… What have you been up to? What’s coming up?
Well it really wouldn’t be one of my usual blogs if I didn’t wrap it up with a quick-fire overview of what we’ve been up to & what’s coming up! We’re just coming off the back end of our biggest project to date with a big national brand that we can’t wait to announce. This really has been a biggie for us so we’ve been squirrelling a way at that for a long time now. We’re looking forward to wrapping that up so we can finally put all the things we’ve learnt into practise and start finally producing some content!
We’ve got some major plans coming along nicely for giving a more in depth glance at what we do at Indigo and our day to day runnings. As well as some video content chatting to some super cool people & revealing our tips and tricks for running a creative studio. I am well and truly being nagged to produce more blogs too, so will be writing more educational and topic specific blogs rather than just the occasional update about Indigo.
Also it’s about time but we’ve finally been really trying to nail our branding down. When we first got set up, we were so new to the game, it was all kind of a bit unintentional and we didn’t know where to start with our identity. During lockdown we’ve been able to assess and develop our 'why' and how we want to present ourselves to the world. And to finally get our branding up to date with where we are at in our journey, rather than our online presence being about 10 months behind where we are!!!
Jake has done an exceptional job of learning Webflow and building us a sleek site with all our up-to-date work in. We’ve really learnt a lot on our journey of a new web build (and a HUGE thank you to those in our new network who have massively added value and help for this along the way). I am sure in time to come we’ll be throwing something out about our experience with Webflow and why we chose to work with it. It’s a fantastic platform for creatives and opens up a lot more flexibility - especially with incorporating animation into the site straight from AE. We are super excited to be launching this in the next month or so.
So all in all we’re still feeling very positive. It’s been a refreshing season for us. Storms come to clear the air. It has come with its own challenges as I am sure every business is going through. But we are pleased that we were able to build something strong that has been able to sustain us through lockdown, and that our industry is appearing to flourish at current, may it continue!
As always, wishing everybody the best. Stay safe.
- Lucy
