Beki Bright

MEET THE MAKER

I am a London based textile designer and screen printer creating artist-designed textiles for the home. My range of textiles includes cushions, lampshades, wallpaper and fabric by the metre all of which have been hand screen printed and made in London. My work celebrates the English countryside. Having grown up in rural Suffolk and spent more recent years living in Somerset, I draw inspiration for my designs from these surroundings and the landscapes that encompass them. My lived experiences of these spaces have led to a fascination with English folklore, county crafts, and rituals of the countryside all of which inform my work. I started my career by working as a Breakdown Artist and Dyer for theatre and film where I specialised in dyeing fabrics and colour matching. Everything came together when I decided to study an MA in textile design at Bath Spa University, this is where I developed a business plan for Beki Bright and the Harvest collection for my final project, the rest is history.

WHAT ARE YOUR FEEDBACKS?

The ultimate aim for my brand Beki Bright is to create beautiful handcrafted, artist-designed interior textiles. Through my designs, I hope to bring the joy of the countryside into the homes of my customers, whilst highlighting lost traditions of rural life through print, colour and design. I applied for Crafting Business because I had a strong creative vision for my brand but lacked some of the skills and the confidence to achieve my aim of creating a financially sustainable business that will support me and my family in the future. The last four months of training have been amazing, I have learnt so much about running a business in a relatively short period of time. We covered a wide range of subjects from business modeling and financial planning to presenting and writing about my practice. A real eye-opener! I realised pretty quickly that I had a lot to learn. For me, the main aspects of the Crafting Business training that have helped me the most have been around financial planning and business modeling. For the first time, I now have a financial plan for the next five years of my business. I have also created a new business model, cash flow forecasts, break-even points, sales forecasts, and a production plan to expand my brand. All of which has given me a clear structure to work towards to help me and my business grow. Since finishing Crafting Business I have already started to implement the changes that I outlined in my business plan. The first actions I have taken have been around my new business model; I now have an American Representative, a new PR and press agent, and have put another of my designs into production at a local screen print studio. I have set new sales targets for each month and have a clear breakdown of how much I should be earning and when.

FIVE THINGS YOU’LL BRING WITH YOU FROM THE EXPERIENCE:

• Create a business plan – Having a guide for the year ahead is incredibly helpful and is a really good tool to focus yourself when you start to feel a little lost.
• Structure and manage your time – I now create a monthly calendars for the year ahead. Working backwards from my launch dates and deadlines helps me visualise what needs to be done and when.
• Outsource help when needed – I have been working so hard to do everything myself, I have now hired people to help me with PR and fabric meterage printing to lighten the workload and allow me to focus more energy on the designing and research elements of my practice.
• Understand your business finances and set sales targets for the year ahead – Through doing this I now have a much clearer understanding of how much money I need to earn in order to create an income and pay my business expenses. Even if I don’t hit the targets at least I know where I need to improve.
• Calm down – There’s no point in being stressed the whole time , it doesn’t make your work get done any quicker.