“It’s where the magic and the logic meet”: The growth of Studio MinaLima

MinaLima helped make a magical world feel real. Building a global creative business became their next adventure.

From design work for the Harry Potter films to publishing, retail and new products, Studio MinaLima has grown by finding new ways to tell stories. We spoke with Co-founder, Miraphora Mina, and Managing Director, Damien O’Donohoe, about that evolution, the role of Creative Growth Finance and keeping the studio’s creative core as the business expands.

 

Damien O’Donohoe and Miraphora Mina

 

Creative UK: For people discovering MinaLima for the first time, how would you describe the business today, and how has it evolved since the studio was founded?

Mira: We never set out to be a multidisciplinary design studio with 70 employees. It was driven by the passion to tell stories visually, and that was really just me and my co-founder, Eduardo Lima, for a long time. We met working on the Harry Potter films and shared this vision about how to tell those stories.

We’ve become multidisciplinary, across different mediums of design. The expression can be anything from publishing and theme parks to prop design for films, and hopefully animation in the future. They’re all connected by story and how we can bring it to life through visuals. A lot of people talk about our work for the Harry Potter films as something that made a fiction real. Our mission is to give life to something that previously didn’t exist, so that you’re believing in it and taking part in it.

Damien: I describe our evolution today as an independent global IP studio and a consumer-facing creative brand.

We wouldn’t set out to create growth for the sake of growth. The most important thing is to keep the secret sauce, the essence of the brand, which has a special relationship with its fandom and its audience. We’ve moved from film to storytellers across all formats, and it’s very important to keep that identity.

 

Creative UK: Your work has become instantly recognisable around the world. How did you make the transition from designing for film into building a consumer-facing creative business?

Mira: When we were working on the films, we knew they were popular, but we didn’t really understand the feelings people had towards the work itself. We attended a Harry Potter fan convention in Chicago just as we were setting up the retail side of the business.

We did a talk and about 1,000 people showed up to hear us speak about graphic design and prop making. We were so anxious because we thought, why would anyone want to spend time listening about typography and book design?

But the objects in the films had become characters that people had fallen in love with as well. They wanted to know the stories behind them. When they found out there were actual people –  us two Muggles – who had thought about how to bring these words to life in pictures, there was this instant dialogue. We completely underestimated the power of it.

That was a pivotal moment. We thought we had a duty to continue bringing them more of what they loved, and that we could turn this into a very viable business.

The retail side grew from a simple idea of doing a little pop-up and sharing our products with our fans. When you come to our shops, we want you to step over the threshold and climb into the spirit of MinaLima. Everything’s about the emotional experience.

 

MinaLima’s New York store

 

Creative UK: As the business continued to grow, what made you realise it was the right time to seek investment?

Damien: During the COVID year, we grew by 38% just in retail, despite closing down the shop and wholesale. Over that three-year period, we grew by 150%. We built up our balance sheet because, to grow, you do need the right finances.

We reached a point where growth was outpacing what we could fund, particularly as we wanted to move into new categories of product like the board game, continue focusing on publishing and expand internationally in retail.

All of that needs capital and structure ahead of the revenue curve. You’ve got to anticipate it and make sure you have the capability and capacity to deliver. Investment was about giving the business the operational backbone to scale in a responsible way. For us, it’s always about the work. In order to create more magic and wonder, we needed the right investment and the right investment partner.

 

Creative UK: What were you looking for in an investment partner, and why did Creative Growth Finance feel like the right fit?

Damien: We needed a partner who understood, first and foremost, a creative IP business. Once you create great work and keep nurturing your people, the revenues and the money will flow. We wanted somebody who would champion the opportunities MinaLima has and recognise our creative model and how unique it is.

When I explored Creative Growth Finance, it felt natural: the way you look at your portfolio and champion the UK’s deep heritage in storytelling. We wanted somebody who understood that and was looking at the opportunity, rather than constantly talking about EBITDA or covenants. That was a big factor in our decision.

Everything Creative UK stands for, and your funding criteria, made it feel natural to get a loan from you to develop what we call an inflection point. We knew, particularly with the board game, that this was going to be quite a significant step for us.

 

MinaLima’s upcoming board game, Defenders of Hogwarts

 

Creative UK: MinaLima has recently expanded into new areas of product development, including your upcoming Harry Potter board game, which has received an incredible response through Kickstarter. How exciting is it to see audiences engage with MinaLima’s storytelling in new formats?

Mira: It’s part of our mission to make sure we’re not stuck in one category for the expression of our ideas. This was quite a big departure from what we’re used to, but it’s all anchored in story. In this case, the story is play: it’s about you and your relationship to the other players.

It energised the team to work in a completely new format. The function of our design is the core of the experience, and how you feel has to be built into the experience of the players.

Crowdfunding was a new area for us too. We needed Creative UK’s support to give us the leg up into Kickstarter. What came back was not just impressive and reassuring for the business, but so interesting.

It wasn’t just the board game that was new; it was the way we sold it. All that hard work has been rewarded, not just in the monetary sense, but in the response of the community.

Damien: It felt like a natural category for MinaLima, where you could play with family and friends. Kickstarter had a large board game community, and we wanted to reach new audiences.

In 23 days, we raised 1.3 million before taxes and shipping, which went beyond our expectations. We had big smiles, like Cheshire Cats. More importantly, we doubled our newsletter audience. We’ve got a whole new audience for the future.

 

MinaLima storefront, Osaka

 

Creative UK: Alongside new products, MinaLima has been growing its international presence through retail and exhibitions. What has that expansion meant for the business?

Damien: Our retail is now international, with shops in Japan, the US and the UK, and it will continue to expand. We see that as important as our publishing arm. Our books are published and translated in probably 40 countries now, so our fan base is growing. As we create more products and content, we can bring that through into retail and experiences.

Retail is also natural when we do exhibitions. People are interested in what MinaLima can bring in experiences, or in exhibiting our work, and retail shows how we turn those creations into products people can take away.

Mira: This year marks the 25th anniversary of Eduardo and me first meeting on the Harry Potter films. From December, we’ll be celebrating with an exhibition for about a year in Switzerland, at a museum that celebrates the art of narrative form: illustration, film art and animation.

A little bit will be Harry Potter, but a lot will be everything else. We’ve been working hard to build this exhibition. We like to share the processes behind how we work, as well as the finished article.

 

Creative UK: MinaLima is also a member of Creative UK. How has being part of that wider creative community helped, and what would you like to get from it as you continue to grow?

Damien: For any company, having direct peer learning is important: similar people on similar journeys. Nothing is ever linear. Even growth brings its own pains as you evolve and need more structure.

People have gone through their own journeys and experiences, and that’s the best way to learn. Whether it’s scaling a design-led brand or IP protection, these things aren’t unique to anybody. Having the opportunity to connect with other members is very important as we continue to evolve, because we’ll have a lot of decisions to make on that journey.

There are lots of opportunities we can tap into with Creative UK.

Mira: Our problem here is time as well as money. I want to have more time to enjoy everything Creative UK has to offer outside of coming to the studio. A goal for next year is to be more engaged and take advantage of those connections beyond the financial opportunity.

 

Creative UK: Looking back on MinaLima’s journey, what’s the biggest lesson you’d share with other creative entrepreneurs?

Mira: Trusting your gut and allowing yourself to follow a bit of a dream is really key at particular junctions in the journey. Listen to those messages. But you do need to protect that creative core as you scale: never let operational growth dilute the thing that made it distinctive in the first place. There’s a tension there, but maybe tension is good in business.

Our next most exciting thing is that we’ve finally written our own story, which we’ll illustrate and publish ourselves in 2027. It’s a real turning point and the culmination of the experience we’ve had across different mediums and ideas. It’s hugely risky and driven by gut again, but we’re very excited about how it will play out.

Damien: For any creative, you still need some form of commercial and financial structure underneath in order to scale. It’s also important that all our partners understand our values around care and craft, and that quality will never be compromised. Everybody in the chain needs to understand it.

Stay relevant and continue innovating, because that’s what sustains growth. As I call it, it’s where the magic and the logic meet.

 

To learn more about Studio MinaLima and their products, go to https://minalima.com/

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