“The London Story is well received with the students! Here is the feedback we just got last week from a teacher in California: My class loved building The London Tower Bridge together. They cheered and clapped for themselves. So thank you again for putting-in the extra effort, to you and the rest of the team. I truly believe it was worth it", says Valentin Ruest, CED (US), Classtime puts the sentiments of Graphixstory’s prestigious client ecosystem into words. Kolkata based Graphixstory, a Video & Immersive Tech driven Storytelling & Campaign Design Studio, has come a long way since its inception in 2015 as a college classroom startup. Founded by a couple of college buddies, Surajit Majhi and Avishek Saha, Graphixstory today is one of the Best Design Studios in Kolkata with an elite list of clients under its belt ranging from Facebook to Snapchat, Flipkart, Nykaa, SBI, BBC, McDonald’s India, Redbus, and more. CIO Insider explores the story of Graphixstory through an exclusive interview with Surajit and Avishek.

Acquaint us with the inception story of Graphixstory and where is it currently placed in the Animation industry?
It is often said that the best time to start is when you are not ready, and it perfectly goes with how Graphixstory was started back in October 2015. We were two startup enthusiasts fueled by our passion for creativity. But we were still in our college back then. After almost a year’s study on the animation industry and its impacts & applications in advertising, Graphixstory was incorporated as a legal entity in November 2016 and has been in full-fledged operation since March 2017.

After five years of operation, we can proudly say that we are the best Animation and Video Production Studio from Kolkata in advertising and one of the bests in India. We have happy clients across the globe such as Facebook, Snapchat, McDonald’s India, Flipkart, Myntra, Etsy, Nykaa, SBI,

Prudential, BBC, and more.

Take us around the company’s portfolio of services. Why do you consider your Oreo experiment the most funfilled experiment?
We love telling stories. And we love to do it through moving pictures, i.e., videos, as it is one of the most compelling storytelling mediums and will always be. Though Animation is our forte, we are also into Live action Film Making and Stop Motion Animation.

We have recently put our feet into immersive storytelling to give our clients and audience a wholesome experience of storytelling that is new, more fun, and engaging. A basic example of such an immersive experience is AR filters on platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat.

As a growing entity, we always love to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to adopting new technologies, which will definitely open new avenues of business in the near future. And as a part of this research and development have always been one of the four pillars of our success so far. We are also doing some serious research on the immersive storytelling mediums and have already taken baby steps through AR filters. We are also researching gamified content and its application on various mediums and platforms as another way of experience driven story telling.

Tell us about the qualities that make Graphixstory unique in the market.
When it comes to user experience in videos, the key elements that come to mind are colors, shapes, sounds, and of course, the motion. Our application of quirky shapes and colors has been highly appreciated and adored by masses and creative folks across the globe, which has helped us to be unique in the market in one way. The application of sound is an other crucial element of user experience in videos and other immersive mediums.

Talking about our team’s experience and skill, we have never stopped our team from doing experiments because that’s how we learn and grow by breaking the barrier of what’s already there. Commercial projects are always a very calculated process where we are bound to play within the boundaries of time and other parameters in most cases. That’s why we do a lot of experiments internally to find out better and other different ways of presenting creating elements to our audience. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we fail, but more importantly, we learn.

Tell us about the future roadmap of Graphixstory, its ambitions, and how does it wish to bring them to life?
As a bootstrap studio, 2017, 2018, and 2019 were our years of validation, then 2020 and 2021 were definitely years of our survival from all types of adverse effects of the pandemic, but ensuring an average growth of 2.5X in revenue in all these years. We are seeing 2022 as our year of expansion all the way around. We are planning to set-up our next office in at least one or the other metro city in India to boost our revenue. As mentioned earlier, we have already started expanding our services in the immersive fields. Our target in 2022 is to serve more global clients, providing them international standardservices and seamless experiences.