Karen Jinks is the Creative Director of UK Handmade - a design led online magazine committed to showcasing and promoting the best creative talent the UK has to offer.
Artists and designers from across all of the art disciplines have a place on the site, including photography, textiles, jewellery, fashion, art and design. UK Handmade provides advice and resources to its members as well as helping businesses to collaborate and connect to further the handmade cause for the benefit of all through the online magazine, website and forum.
Karen is also the editor of Creative Boom Cambridge, one of our regional Hubs plus she runs her own business called Chalk Hill Studio. We caught up with Karen to find out what she's currently up to.
So how did it all start? Where did the idea for UK Handmade come from? UK Handmade came about because a group of us who had shops in an online selling venue wanted to find a way of promoting our shops to the general public in the UK, rather than to fellow crafters. The obvious choice was to produce a magazine and website. Both Jo Askey and myself are graphic designers and I already had my own web design business so we had the means, talent and the enthusiasm to give it a go. Jo has a distinctive style and has created a magazine and brand identity that is stylish and modern and we have been able to break the image of handmade being a dusty and old fashioned past time.
Do you think there is currently enough support for the creative industries in the UK? What more can be done? I think support for the creative industries in the UK is severely lacking. We have seen a lot of important creative organisations struggle to survive without the funding they need, and sadly given today's economic climate I can only see it getting worse before it gets better. Having said that there is a lot we can do if we work together to help each other. The creative community is a large network of supportive individuals and UK Handmade is proof of this - there is nothing that can't be done if we all pull together.
What's been the highlight of UK Handmade so far? I think more than anything we are have been surprised and delighted about the community and support that has gathered around us. More than being just a promotional tool UK Handmade has tapped into a desire to live a better quality of life for ourselves and our children. A lot of the designer / makers we feature make upcylced items, care about our planet, grow their own vegetables and their creativity goes beyond the things they sell. What has been interesting is the amount of people joining us recently who have given up well paid corporate careers to start their own creative businesses. My fellow Directors are both ex lawyers - Anna Stassen and Kirsten Miller. And of course there is our recent move to becoming a LTD company - all very scary and exciting.
Tell us about your own background and career? I have always been creative and knew from an early age I wanted to be an artist and work for myself. I studied graphic design at Norwich then started a handmade wedding stationery business after being asked to do stationery for a friend's wedding. This was back in 2000 when the internet was pretty new and there were not many options for selling online like there is now. My brother is a web developer and taught me html so I could build my own website and I've never looked back! I gave up the wedding business after the birth of my second child as I wanted to work on my own designs more and www.chalkhillstudio.co.uk was born.
Where do you hope UK Handmade will be in five years time? Recently we have taken on new people with lots of fantastic ideas to help develop UK Handmade and we want to be the central place for people with their own creative businesses to come to provide them with support, advice and opportunities they can't get anywhere else. Hopefully in 5 years time we will be still be growing strong!
What advice would you give to aspiring creatives out there? Apart from joining UK Handmade you mean? Seriously the best advice I can give is to stay true to yourself and don't give up. Don't see fellow creatives as competition, networking is your best tool in a competitive industry and working together can do wonders for your business, especially if you have a unique product.
How many members do you now have? And how has the site helped to boost your own careers? We currently have just over 1500 members with people joining daily. And just check out my fabulous team. UK Handmade hasn't boosted my original career in terms of wanting to sell my own designs (I'm just too busy) but it has created me a new path - I am currently working as a part time marketing consultant for www.makers-online.co.uk and it has benefited my webdesign business. Same can be said for the other members of UK Handmade. We are all vounteers but the exposure and experience we get through working at UK Handmade has been a huge boost. We are a credible organisation and working with us is worthy of putting on our CV. I am very proud of what we have achieved here and excited for the future - this is just the tip of the iceberg!
