Nortarts: a small agency dreaming big

“Nort-arts is a reference to bringing together art and the north. I’m inspired by the north, by Nordic culture, and my family is also from the north of Turkey (Trabzon), and art is my passion,” says Hüseyin Bulut, founder and CEO of Istanbul-based Nortarts.

Competition is fierce and it’s been a difficult year for the company. “Advertising is both cheap and aggressive in Turkey. We have talented videographers and artists here in Turkey, so you have to be on top of your game. The pandemic was hard for us, especially for daily expenses. Billing was badly affected and shooting videos was terrible. But we are hopeful that the economy will rebound soon.”

In 2020, in order to upgrade some of his equipment, Hüseyin took an EU-guaranteed micro-loan from Fibabanka, backed by the EIF: “It allowed us to upgrade some of our tools, computers, electronic tools, and to buy new camera lenses,” he explains. “We are in a digital world, so visual arts are constantly changing,” Hüseyin adds. “We’re always using more powerful computers to achieve better results, for example in video editing. You have to keep upgrading your toolkit.”

Apart from his successful work in advertising, Hüseyin is looking to expand the business, moving more into other areas: “We’re a small company, but we want to grow. We’re working on it, making progress,” he says. “Right now, we’re working on mobile games, and in the future we will put money into mobile phone games. It’s a very different business and I think we can be good at it. I enjoy it, even if the bulk of our business today is mainly in advertising.”