Workshop Stamp

We've finally got the WKSP stamp back from being cut and we now plan to stamp all our letterheads, business cards and small publications with it as a mark of approval.

Counter-Objects

I am really pleased that Counter-Objects (sister site to Counter-Print) have got in touch saying they really like my work and would like to sell some on their shop. I've put forward an edition of 5 of each impossible prints and I hope they do well. It means that my work is being sold next to designers like Anthony Burrill, Alex Trochut and Sawdust which is great.

Ugly Dogs

I've also found out that there is going to be a small creative market at Testspace so under Workshop we have quickly put together a fun little zine to sell, it won't make a lot of money but it could help to get our name out onto the "zine scene" The zine is based purely around funny pictures of dogs interspersed with more provative pictures, its a simply idea crudely done but thats what I believe a zine should be.

Testspace

I am going to be exhibiting my three gold impossible prints at Testspace in Leeds 10th-12th June.

Limited Company or Partnership

Currently deciding what is the best legal structure for Workshop. Limited company may put more strains on us to set up and would take more of our time away from designing, and could also force us to change the name slightly. However it does offer more of a safety net if things go wrong as we(the shareholders) would only be liable for our initial share (probably about £50). Partnership allows us a lot more creative freedom and it very easy to set up however if things went wrong and we got into debt then we would be personably liable for the debt. Seen as we're not planning on borrowing anything, and out expenses are relatively low I don't think it should be too much of a problem, the only time I can foresee a problem would be if a print job went bad. Also a limited company could give us more tax breaks on our expenses.

Looking for grants

I've been doing quite a lot of searching around to try and find information about whether there's grants available for starting up a graphic design business. The two best options seem to be Business Link and the Arts Council. I've have a good read through all the literature and I may put in an application with the Arts Council but unfortunately it seems that most of the grants are geared more towards non profit and community arts projects, which is all well and good, but I also think that there should be more organisations to help new creative businesses.

T-Shirt Labels

We've been having problems to come with ideas to get around buying T-shirts, really we'd like to buy american apparel because they will in definately sell and feel better but they are just too expensive, we've both had good experience with Gildan before only they dont have a great reputation. Now though we think we might be able to get around this by unpicking the Gildan tags and instead ironing on our own which would make the shirts even more branded to us.