Category Archives: Inspiration

There’s an exhibition going on at the moment over at the wonderful YSP by Donna Wilson called Endangered Species, I blogged about it a while back when me and Adam went over to see it. If you’re not familiar with Donna, she’s a Scottish designer based in London who creates an array of homewares, creatures & (recently) prints/ceramics.

Cyril Squirrel-Fox, image from Donna Wilson’s website.

Her work is lovely, so it was great to see that she was going to be coming to Hudds University to give a talk all about how she’s developed her business and give advice to others. Anyone could attend, not just the students, so Debbie and I went along armed with our notepads!

The event was sponsored by Tiger Print, an offshoot of Hallmark cards who deal specifically with Marks and Spencer’s greetings range. I think that part was mainly aimed at the current university students, sort of trying to sell them a graduate scheme… sounded pretty good, I guess, we never had that opportunity on my university course.

Donna then introduced herself, and her brand, and talked through her career. Graduating from a BA up in Scotland she ended up with a job in London after not being accepted onto a MA at RCA. This didn’t deter her though, and with the experience from her job she managed to apply successfully with a fresh portfolio a couple of years later. From there, she began selling some items to support herself through the course, setting up a mini-studio in her home. After her course she set up a Real Life Studio and began making more and more, and contracts kept rolling in. Donna told us her pearls of wisdom that she’s learned through the years, and these are the points that struck me:

• Keep your overheads low for as long as you can, work from home studios, your kitchen table, where-ever.
• Integrity is everything.
• You’ll be surprised what sells.
• You don’t need a business plan to be successful.
• Collaborate.
• Trade shows, whilst expensive, can be very lucrative. Buddy up and share a stand.

I left the talk feeling inspired (ladies doing bidniz FTW!), happy that I had quite a lot of my own views affirmed (always good), and full of subjects that I’m going to be discussing in some upcoming working for yourself posts. Now, go check out her website (and buy me a Cyril Squirrel-Fox..).