Here is a selection of features from Craft Focus magazine.
Business partners Kirsten Burke & Jill Hembling have been running The Modern Calligraphy Co. in for the past 25 years. Lifelong friends, they made the decision to combine Kirsten's passion and talent for modern calligraphy with Jills head for business and organisation.
In the '90s, Kirsten was regarded as one of the leading contemporary calligraphers in the country, known for her modern artistic style she was asked to lecture around the country and commissioned by national galleries and museums such as Shakespeare's Globe, Bankside. The company's commercial focus was on transferring her lettering style onto greeting cards and wedding stationery and the company's most successful range, FC2 still retails in more than 540 stores nationwide and with over a million cards sold. In the last decade, calligraphy has become one of the most popular crafts in the UK, with everyone wanting to learn it.
The Modern calligraphy company now has 70 calligraphers working for them nationally on high profile luxury events and 15 ambassadors running workshops for them nationwide from Edinburgh to Brighton. Alongside this, Kirsten was commissioned to create her best-selling Secrets of Calligraphy books and developed luxury nib and brush calligraphy kits so that people could learn from the comfort of their own home. According to Hobbycraft, over lockdown sales of calligraphy kits and materials increased by a whopping 400 per cent.
Photography can have a profoundly positive impact on your business. And, if you want to ask yourself why, it's worth remembering the age-old saying - a picture is worth a thousand words. Sara Davies offers Craft Focus readers sound advice