Interview with Aili Olichney, Community Content Creator at Genially
Aili tells us about Genially, an interactive content creation tool.
Tell us about Genially, what is the elevator pitch?
Genially is an all-in-one tool for creating interactive and animated presentations, pitch decks, infographics, product catalogues, digital escape games, and more. It allows individuals to achieve the results that used to require the resources of a graphic design and programming team without needing advanced knowledge to do so. Genially provides thousands of templates as well as the ability to start from scratch for 100% customizable creations.
What made you want to build a new content creation and storytelling tool?
Juan, our CEO, was working in Ecoavantis, a company that designed publicity for environmental projects and businesses. Clients requested the ability to edit the creations sent to them and many lacked the programming and design knowledge needed to do so easily.
Most businesses were still using PowerPoint and other Office tools, communicating as they had almost 20 years prior. It was clear that people needed a better accessible alternative with more interactive options. The idea for a powerful but simple tool like Genially was born.
Genially, beyond being a great slide tool, seems like a tool for creating infographics, CVs, and other materials. How do you help customers create all these types of brand materials?
We make it really simple by providing 12 categories of templates. Customers can choose from those templates or simply choose a canvas size and start with a blank workspace. Because everything is modifiable—they can add and take away pages, modify their dimensions and add interactivity and animation effects to any element they choose—there isn’t a single kind of digital material that customers are unable to make with Genially.
How do you craft all the Genially templates?
We are lucky to have an incredibly talented and dedicated team of designers who create templates in response to our customers’ wants and needs. Some templates are created as a direct response to requests that reach us through our social media channels, support team, and ambassadors once we see that one request repeats itself. Others are made in alignment with more general needs and trends we see in communication.
Once our templates have been designed, their usability is tested and modifications are made to ensure that they are easy to use.
If you could give non-creatives one piece of design advice, what would it be?
Keep it simple. People who don’t know much about design tend to want to add a lot of bells and whistles to their creations because they think that more is better. They want to add tons of animation effects, a wide range of colors and sound all at once. There are websites that offer examples of palettes of 3 or 4 colors that go well together. If you’re not starting with a template, consider getting inspiration from outside sources and starting with a fairly clean design. You can add more elements as you learn more about basic design principles.
What is the biggest challenge Genially faces?
Genially has accomplished a lot in a short period of time, and now the challenge is to keep that momentum going. We want to become even more versatile through the addition of new features, more global through the opening of new markets, and to continue to offer a differentiated product that does what others can’t.
What, if anything, can you share about the future of Genially?
We have a lot of new features and one especially huge release that we’re excited about, and we’ll be sharing that with our community around the end of 2020.
What's one unique thing about Genially the company?
Our team is made up of people who haven’t always been in tech. Our CEO is a biologist by training and we have a wide range of teachers, athletes and artists mixed in with people who studied more directly related fields. This diversity of training really shows itself when it comes to our product because it doesn’t compromise options for simplicity. We want to incorporate all our great ideas, which means that the result is something truly powerful.
Learn more about Genially
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