Issues and Practices. Running your own buisiness.

Throughout my degree my ideas of what path to take when I finish varies, from working for a design company within textiles for fashion, freelancing with the help of an agent selling to textile studios, or running my own business. I have decided to work part time within my current job and do some freelancing to gain experience to expand my own textile design samples.
Eventually I would like to work for myself, hopefully renting my own studio and using it as a working space as well as selling my products in house. Visits to trade shows and design studios have gained me some understanding of how creator-makers within textiles have achieved this opportunity. Chatting to designers about how they set up their own businesses, responded by saying that they had applied to organizations that help up and coming designers with funding like grants; the most popular organization is The Arts Council.


The Arts Council helps to fund trade shows like Origins in London and The Great Northern Contemporary Craft fair in Manchester, these trade shows are where I met designers who said that being awarded with a place at the trade shows had made a massive help in promoting their businesses. Some designers were lucky enough to have the support and money to help them take on their dream opportunity but others designers spoken how they had to take risks like borrowing money, relying on funding and being skint for the first few years which in the end thankfully paid off.


Understanding the reality of running your own business can be achievable by good planning, and getting as much advice as possible like financial advice, help with business planning and applying for funding. Being accepted as a designer maker at trade shows is a good sign that your work is good and will have the potential to sell, designer makers who I spoke too said that it is really important to get out and promote your work as much as possible especially through trade shows with a good website and postcards as a form of contact. Other ways of promoting work are through blogs and textile design magazines such as selvedge that show your work with good photography and writing.


Manchester Craft and Design centre have studio space which you have to apply for through their website, I have looked into this and a small studio is around £180 per month which isn’t too bad but the rates are much higher. If I ended up applying for a studio here I would probably share a space with somebody else to keep the costs down, also so I could work part time doing other work to support myself. Hopefully sharing a studio space would be better to help each other out to keep it running everyday for example if I or if they have to work somewhere else part time the other can help keep the studio going especially when customers visit.


Other ways of working independently is through websites whether that be creating my own or through websites like NOTHS (www.notonthehighstreet.com). I have read a few articles of designer makers selling their work on line through this website and they seem to have been successful, one business in particular is Paper Salad publishers of stationary who I have previously written about in my blog for my practitioners report. I e-mailed Not on the High Street early this year and they have written back to me letting me know that they are willing to take creative designs like crafts for the home, jewellery, stationary and accessories for fashion and sell them with a small commission for themselves. One designer called Wendy Harrison a graphics artist who designs engraved pebbles says she joined the website in 2008 and soon had 100 orders a week.



I have looked at organizations that could be really helpful in order to set up my own business I have done some research and collected a file of information about funding, ie The Arts Council, Women in Business and Shell Live. Business planning such as IT for Business can help with managing, planning, promotion and tax, plus personal data, data protection act. I have had some useful information on copyright licensing looking at anti-copy right in design and Creative Commons, in order to protect designs from being copied or used to manipulate.


I still feel I have to investigate further into running my own buisiness and to find the best help available, I will carry on with this research whilst building up my design samples. Overall I have a broader understanding of how running a business can be made possible.