About

ILUMY is your strategic prototyping partner.

The world is changing fast. And it has to change fast, to make earth a safe and just space. That requires continuous adaptation, with new products and services, ways of working and business models. Better hurry! Don't get stuck talking. Don't lose energy keeping up failing ideas.

Yet... successful innovators know one thing: nobody knows what innovation will be successful. So where to focus? We believe continuous prototyping is the only way to find out and keep moving. Make ideas tangible, speed-up experimentation, learn and move on. That's why we offer Prototyping-as-a-Service.

We are designers, engineers, strategists, facilitators and entrepreneurs. Working with your team, we increase the value of innovation projects and help create a generative culture.

Why the name ILUMY? A brief history

ILUMY was born from a startup-team. In 2002, ILUMY launched to develop the perfect digital projector for the living room. Mission aborted after 6 months. In 2005, Stefan and David launched the simPC. Since then we worked on many failed and successful ideas, products, services and start-ups. It took till 2009 to re-launch ILUMY and open our first office, at Waterlooplein, Amsterdam. In 2014 we moved to Rokin and launched Plek, by now a very successful partner of ILUMY. Building on everything we learned from start-ups and leading organisations, we are now your strategic prototyping partner.

We have had the pleasure over the past years to work with a wide variety of partners, through which we gained pertinent experience to draw lessons from, and optimize our way of working. This is how we have come to develop our own prototyping method.

The structure that holds our work together can be understood as the iterative cycle of “create, test, review”. We create by ideating, visualising, designing and building, in order to inspire, make tangible and make possible. We test by analysing data, talking to all stakeholders, and interviewing users, in order to make sure we deliver the best possible result. We review by sharing insights, sharing results, evaluating and adapting, in order to keep on learning and growing. And then we iterate.

At the core of this structure is the principle of engagement. As an agency that strives for positive change, we firmly believe that the essence of any creation lays with whether it answers an actual need. To ensure this, we see our prototyping method as a collaborative process, together with our partners and end users. This way we don’t only achieve the best possible results in terms of efficiency, but also in terms of desirability.

These are our guiding principles and activities as we move through each phase of the prototyping process: explore, prove, deliver, and transfer.

Explore

Explore the future. Engage with users and stakeholders. Identify frictions & opportunities. Start prototyping!

Prove

Find the sweet spot of innovation. Test in reality how opportunities can be desirable, feasible and viable. Choose what to deliver.

Deliver

Convert prototypes to (corporate) reality: build, produce, implement, launch, sell. Allure users, colleagues and stakeholders to try and embed the new in daily work and life.

Transfer

Share knowledge, ownership and ways of working with the people and teams who will keep improving and prototyping!

Prototype our relationship

Let's talk prototyping! We're always up for an exploratory chat about your business and how we can work together.

Schedule a meeting

Or call us at +31 20 7740033

About ILUMY

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