cost pricing and selling

Financial restraints have definitely impacted on my final major project , I did not have the funds to purchase expensive materials and so recycling was the best option, I used a couple picture frames that i already had and purchased the rest at a cost of £60, fabric I used was £2 and £4.50 per meter, the crockery was from ikea's seconds and cost £1 per item, it then cost £15 to have my art work transferred onto a printable sheet for ceramics. I spent around £50 on card and paper and used my children's old clothes for the fabric collages . It cost £30 for trimmings , buttons , threads , glue , tape etc. having researched the craft market i have found that items sell for prices of any where between £4 right up to £460 , you can charge for your time, the materials and the hand crafted bespoke element , your over heads , shipping cost , at the end of the day your work is worth what people are willing to pay for it, I paid I found some interesting websites with lots of information on them !

http://www.ohboydenterprises.com/HowToPriceHandmadeGoods.html

http://www.makeforbusiness.com/directory.php?directory=Pricing

http://ukhandmade.co.uk/content/business-pricing-your-handmade-goods

http://ukhandmade.ning.com/forum/topics/how-do-you-work-out-the-price

For my degree show i have some funds available from the last installment of the student loan, through my contact with Claire Worthington I have found a lady who is going to make me some black and white cup cakes for the show 6 cakes will cost £12 , she has found me a company who can transfer my art onto icing to make toppers for the cakes and the price is 85 p per item.

I want to get some high quality black and white fabrics to make more textile items for the show .The craft council and some other craft organisations have some funding opportunities available

http://www.craftanddesignmonth.net/proposal.pdf

http://www.startacraftbusiness.co.uk/small-business-grants-funding.html

http://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/craft-directory/opportunities/list/?type_guid%5B%5D=16

http://www.aah.org.uk/post/491

Apart from Etsy and Folksy , I see my own website as a way of making sales , I have also been approached by a couple of retailers via twitter and have a meeting with a shop owner in early August to discuss business options.

Social Media Campaign

Having had several meetings with Claire Worthington about the development of a website she also advised me to launch a 'social media campaign' using twitter, facebook and linkedin which are all online social networking sites. I created a twitter account on 4th March and was delighted to find I soon had several 'followers' from the art and design industry including a shop owner whom I am now in contact with regarding selling my work. I also found links to possible funding opportunities and local facilities such as a studio which offers silk screen printing services. I its a brilliant way to network and find people who will help and support you in your work. Claire said she had been at a lecture given by a woman who's business is to advise people about how to exploit online social media sites who had recommended that business people should tweet 6 times a day and the content of the tweets should be 20% information 20% entertaining 40% interaction and 20% business, in order to retain interest and be successful.

I have also joined linked in which is much more business focused and once I have finalised my portfolio and have quality photographs of my work ( my friend who is a professional photographer has offered to take shots of the uni show and all my work ) I plan to create a facebook page to help promote my work and link to my website.

FMP initial ideas

These are some images of my initial ideas generation, I was trying to create a feeling of being trapped so the idea of cages came up, I experimented using different materials to try and make cage like structures including, wire, paper, candle wax, tea bags, card board , string, fabric, pins and twigs some were more successful than others!

Claire Worthington FMP porfolio visit.

I made contact with Claire Worthington during the last project and she has kindly offered to help me create a website to show case my work as she is building a portfolio of web designs for her new business. I have had several meetings with her to discuss ideas such as what business name to use, Claire said it is important to use co.uk at the end of my website domain name in order to high light the fact i am a british designer. We also discussed what i needed to include on my website, a home page, a potfolio/gallery of work page and a contact details page, Claire said other pages can also be added like a bio page and links to blogs ect.We also discussed my designing a banner to go across all the pages and the importance of using the same font and navigation tools which best reflected my brand/style.

Claire suggested that along with maintaining my blog i should create a professional twitter account to launch a social media campaign for my work, again links to which would be added to the website.

Claire is happy to manage the site for me so that i can concentraite on doing the art work , the cost of registering a web domain is £6 for two years.

I have booked more time in to see Claire next week to start putting the wheels in motion.

FMP

For my final major project i want to develop what i started in the last brief, i still feel that collage is a relevant production method and that using a narrative with in the work is important for me. I want to represent things in my life that have held me back and also things that have set me free, my vision is some kind of cage like structures which will both contain and release representations of people events or places that have impacted on my life .I want to use my own illustrations of animals along with collaged fabrics and papers to create creatures that will be either trapped in or escaping from cages.

During my negotiated project i made contact with or visited several professional designer makers in the art/craft field who all gave me feedback on my work, the general feeling was that my presentation was good and that i was aiming towards a niche, high end market. It was suggested that i used my own illustrations rather than found imagery and i needed to push the ideas much further, to be bold and work on a larger scale and don't limit the subject matter.

It was great to get some positive feedback which really helped boosted my confidence , i realized by talking to these artists that's it is ok to be yourself as long as the work is of a high enough standard and is executed well. It was also reassuring to hear that there is a market place for unusual quirky work, not that commercial gain is my main focus.

Claire Brewster has added me to her mailing list and keeps me up to date with all relevant events in the art and craft world such as trade shows and fairs and Claire Worthington has offered to help me develop a website to show case my work.

The links i made through networking at trade shows and via email have been really helpful i have met some lovely people who have given up their time to offer advice and suggestions. Maxine Sutton sent me some information aimed at students and has been in touch several times via email.

I also contacted several possible outlets for information regarding selling my work.

I have a couple of posible new contacts in mind for portfolio visits for my final magor project.

Karen Little Lecture

Karen Little whom we met during our last project kindly came into college to talk to us about visiting the large trade shows for interiors. Karen has her own consultancy business called Little Designs for Life , she began her career as a cad artist for engraving and has ten years experience as a wallpaper designer. Karen gave us an over view of the Heimtextil trade show which is held in January in Frankfurt, she showed us a power point with images from the 2011 show , there are 11 large halls which cover everything from trend predictions for the next 18 months to the latest high tech wallpapers on the market. Karen felt that the advances in wallpaper technically are very interesting at the moment, she picked up that pattern is very much back in Vogue and lots of contrasts were evident in the form of animal prints as well as very heavily embellished examples including flock and crystals. Some designers and companies of note she mentioned were Barbara Hulanicki (who had designed skulls in flock ). Arte, Marburg, A S Creation , Graham ans Brown and Rasch. Karen said folk art was very prominent especially in fabric patterns and she really liked the collections by Leif and Kas.

Karen talked about future trends and said the Heimtextil prediction hall was named Reconnection and was split into 4 headings which were, sobriety, mix and match , utility and wilderness. It seems that these sub headings pretty much cover all tastes and styles so you can definitely find designs that appeal to every one.

Karen also observed that hand crafting is very much in demand and as with the back to basics and recycling themes she feels hand produced work will continue to become more and more the way forward, there were lots of examples of weaving on very large scale items.

Karen said that networking and being able to interact well with people was equally as important as talent in order to be a successful designer as this is the way you get your self known and are able to sell your work.Visiting trade shows and exhibiting your work are key for marketing and promotion as well as keeping up to date with whats going on in the industry.

Karen told us about Maison and Object trade show which is held in Paris in January and September, she felt it was far more chic than Heimtex and was well worth a visit, the trend prediction from Paris was named Intensity and the emphasis was crafted, simple , back to basics, distorted shapes and irregular patterns , Karen felt people of interest include Francois Bernard, Elizabeth Leriche and Vinvent Gregoire.

Thank you Karen for a very interesting and informative presentation.

http://www.littledesigns.info/

Karen Little tutorial

Karen came into college to speak to us individually about our final Major project work. I talked to her about my ideas and research so far and she was very enthusiastic about my plans, she felt that my drawing was very strong and said that line drawing was very much in vogue at the moment both in fashion and interiors , she commented that i always laughed when i talked about what i was doing and said it was a good thing to use this time to help make sense of where i want to be in the future in it was clear to her that this is what i am doing , she is aware that i am not pursuing a career in the commercial design world and felt it was very valuable and relevant for an artist to produce work that reflected themselves and she feels that i am doing that in this project.

Karen told me that in her opinion a successful designer or artist needs two distinct qualities firstly they need to be talented creatively and secondly they need to be an approachable, likable and friendly person who is able to communicate well with people in order to network and create links with other professionals. She told me she feels i have both qualities but need to have more self belief .

Karen said it was good to see that i was being brave enough to use my own illustrations this time and was fascinated to see what i would produce at the end . Karen suggested links with literature such as the ass/human character of bottom in Shakespeare's Midsummer nights dream, she also gave me some visual references from a bridge in Paris that has a display of padlocks along its length.

I asked Karen for ideas about presenting a portfolio of my work as i was struggling with finding a practical way of displaying my ideas, she suggested mood boards in the shape of doors or gates with padlocks which had to be opened up to reveal my ideas and research again she suggested not to hold back just to go for it the more creative the better.

Thanks so much Karen you were a massive help.

http://www.littledesigns.info/