From the Series
Communications agency Illume Creative Studio provides Rwanda’s budding businesses and brands with a voice. Its founders established the agency five years ago when they recognised a need for a communications platform that would help creative individuals and startups tell their stories and present their brands. Here, managing director Joan Mazimhaka and art director Philippe Nyirimihigo shed some light on the work they do.
The colleagues explain that, before they started the agency, Rwandan industries were growing but there wasn’t much communication aimed at promoting the individuals or businesses to the rest of the world. “No one knew how to tell their stories as artists, as brands, as products, and we thought that we could combine all of our efforts to do so,” says Mazimhaka.
The five founders pooled together their expertise to develop an agency that specialises in the design of concepts and the development of market content for Rwanda’s thriving economy. Their services include creative consulting, social media, content development, event promotion, production and publication, and photography and design.
For Illume, their work as a communications agency ties in with their work as a creative studio. Mazimhaka describes their vision for the agency when they started out:
“We wanted to create ideas and content that we thought would change what you see when you Google “Rwanda” and change what you see when you Google “Africa” overall.”
