Craft Focus - October/November 2020 (Issue 81)

70 Calming Cal l igraphy 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. Jill tells us more… How has the company evolved? 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 Co. 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. What challenges have you overcome during this time? There have been many along the way! When The Modern Calligraphy Co. began, there was a lot of scorn about modern calligraphy from the traditional calligraphy community, but those attitudes have slowly changed to recognise it’s unique accessibility and its exciting dynamics. The market itself has changed rapidly, with the huge boom in crafting hobbies, and existence of social media, the methods for reaching our audience have utterly transformed this ancient craft. We’ve created heaps of content online and grown our brand via our YouTube channel, and since lockdown, we’ve begun live streaming our workshops, which has been a steep technological learning curve for us, but one that has been very successful already. When all eventing was cancelled due to lockdown, the amazing sales of our books and kits for all those people stuck at home, helped us through these last few months and we are expecting fantastic sales as the nights draw in again and in the run up to Christmas! What do you specialise in? Our aim at The Modern Calligraphy Co. is to create a national standard in the UK for teaching modern calligraphy workshops − a real first for the industry, which we’ve achieved in the last two years. We specialise in making modern calligraphy fun and accessible for everyone, no matter their skill level. We really wanted to share our passion for this beautiful style of creativity and let people know that they can give it a try too! It’s been such a pleasure to be able to teach so many fabulous students all over the country. Through our workshops, kits, books, and social media we really believe