Services That We Provide

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Understanding your desire, assessing your ability and available resources are the starting point – skills can be developed.   

How to find out what is your desire when it comes to a creative project?  You should feel motivated even when it comes to performing the most difficult task in the chosen project.  

For example: If you say, you want to design a table, sharpening a chisel or cutting a long piece of wood by hand and sanding it should not tire you.  

Designing objective should be to create objects that are easy to use and functional. You may need a mindset of experimenting and adjusting various parameters systematically to drive desired quality and function. 

Then you need to modify the outlook to express your own ideas and character in order to achieve uniqueness. 

Example: You can think about how a Barbie Doll is designed? 

When we talk about craft work and design, we may not earn enough for a long period of time. 

Therefore, we should not think in terms of profit. It is income that we need to have for our day-to-day expenses until we earn profit from our products. 

In the future everybody will be talking about sustainability rather than profit. 

Technical drawings are important to keep the record of the design. Although there will be a lot of time spent, this will enable to reduce the time spent while making the prototype, modifying it and  producing it. Further, it will also help to calculate the cost efficiently. 

You may not need to overdo it – a simple meaningful systematic record of a pencil drawing would do. 

Making a prototype involves a lot of working hours using hand tools, testing them, keeping accurate record of the changes and modifying it until a satisfactory result is been achieved. 

You need patience, dedication and the support of the work environment. 

You may need training to perform a particular  task. This can be easily achieved by watching Youtube videos, talking to experts and following a short course.

You may also need to take time to practice a skill  before using it on the actual product. It is one of the important steps in the designing process - usually ignored especially when using hand tools and power tools. 

A business plan will help you to structure your ideas. It doesn’t need to be overly complicated, a simple one incorporating income and expenses would do. 

You may also anticipate changes to the plan. A business plan is a guideline not a foundation of the business.  

Often it is mistaken that the business plan should not be modified during the period. A good business plan needs to be reviewed and modified as experience grow and the environment changes. 

Marketing should be based on philosophy, especially for a functional art product. Now, there are so many online facilities available to understand marketing.

Marketing should not be confused with selling. Functional art products need no selling strategy. 

There are various management tools available on the internet. 

The important areas to be managed using management tools are Product Quality; Finance,Customer’s Queries  and Market Trends.  

The tools need to be chosen to measure the output and quality and to indicate future trends and identify pitfalls. 

We  have a workspace at Cheltenham Film Studios with all wood working hand-tools, handsaw, drill press etc.   

At  the moment we do not have any request for metal work, but we would consider extending our workspace with increased facilities in the future.  

We have established contact, for example, to use lathe machines and 3D printing facilities for a reasonable cost and our members will share their expertise too.