An enterprising group of crafts organisations came together over Christmas ’22 to promote a message of buying well-crafted, brilliantly designed handmade goods over cheaper mass produced items.
Folksy, Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair, Craft Festival, Find a Maker, the Crafts Council and the Heritage Crafts Association pooled ideas and resources to come up with the idea. Working a little like the ‘Artists Support Pledge’, The campaign aimed to support makers and designers working in small businesses producing one-off and small batch produced goods by harnessing the power of collective advertising.
A series of graphics and templates that can be adapted by each maker was published and shared as a group resource. You can find links to these below.
Evidence tells us that money spend on small local businesses (even if bought from the other end of the country) is more likely to stay in the area, rather than be absorbed into the moneypots of global chains. It sets up a process of supply and demand for materials and services that spreads this goodness around, benefiting all sorts of local business and putting life into communities.
Christmas might be over, but the campaign lives on – after all, it’s a message that’s relevant all year round.
You can support the campaign by buying the specially designed poster by Nick Hand – see the link below.
You can also join in by using the materials below. Some of these are shaped around Christmas shopping, but many apply all year round. Remeber to find and tag the organisations involved to harness that collective energy!
How to join in:
We recommend first reading our guide here which explains what the campaign is about – shorturl.at/mIKU9
Use our ready-made graphics and templates here (just add your own images) – shorturl.at/opvDX
Buy the official campaign poster by Nick Hand here – https://folksy.com/shops/nickhand
Link for the full campaign pack: shorturl.at/iuJPW
Suggested captions for your social media posts:
Buy less, buy better, buy handmade.
I’m joining @great_northern_events @folksyhq @craftfestival @find.amaker @heritagecrafts & @craftscouncil in their campaign to encourage people to buy handmade and support makers. #buylessbuybetterbuyhandmade.
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North West Craft Network 