EDAN KWAN

He swapped life as a singer for a career making eye-popping digital visuals. The Lusion founder chats to Tom May about battling demons, winning awards and where digital advertising is heading

- Tom May

It’s become somewhat of a cliche to complain that ‘all websites look the same these days’ and ‘all the creativity has gone out of web design’. Visit the website of Lusion (lusion.co) to see how this certainly isn’t the case.

Founded in 2017, the Bristol-based, development-focused studio is on a mission to build “epic real-time interactive experiences to blow people’s minds”. And a quick scroll through the ‘Work’ section of the site makes clear that it’s very much succeeding, from an immersive spatial audio experience for Opera North to an cinematic exploration in global storytelling for filmmaker Julius Onah. We caught up with founder Edan Kwan, to discover how he works to bring such spectacular digital experiences to life.

Could you briefly introduce yourself to anyone who doesn’t know you?

I’m a self-taught creative coder originally from Hong Kong. I’m best known for producing particle effects for websites. I have been in the industry for over ten years working freelance, in big agencies such as Firstborn and UNIT9, and now I run a creative studio called Lusion.

In college and during my early 20s, I was a recording artist in a band. I gave up trying to pursue a career in the music industry after realising it wasn’t for me. So I worked on my English by watching American TV and taught myself how to code. I kept perfecting my skills, surviving on bread, and managed to make a pretty cool Flash portfolio, which attracted some agencies and landed my first full-time agency job at Firstborn in New York.