Totes Amaze!

You asked and we listened ... natural canvas tote bags, printed with my map themed artwork, are now available to buy on my online shop!  Choose your destination and style of handle, natural or iconic red, white and blue webbing, and wear your happy place on your arm with pride. :-)

My journey into becoming a designer again, and launch of my eponymous brand, after a 15 year absence, started with tote bags.  I founded and headed up an eco-ethical manufacturing business in Sheffield in 2007, sourcing fair trade made natural cotton and jute bags in India, made to my specifications. They were then shipped to the UK and printed with ecological inks on a quick turn around at the factory I set up in the industrial heart of Sheffield the same year: BIDBI {Bag It Don't Bin It).

As a directional designer, I could see a gap in the market for natural canvas tote bags as a viable and sustainable alternative to plastic bags and an excellent, value for money, marketing tool. I took on young, unemployed teenage boys and, over years, turned them in Master Printers to some of Britain's best, creative brands and beloved museums. I was rewarded with a hard working and loyal team, which I was proud to be part of and have happy memories of printing late into the night to get orders out the door.

Some of the big retailers we produced tote bags for had the budget for bags but no art and so I volunteered to create designs in order to get the contract. At the same time, there was valid criticism against the trend in cotton bags, that left them stuffed in drawers at home and not doing the job they were meant to do.  So I made them pretty, I turned the humble tote bag into a must have IT bag, an icon of our time. And I did it through creating a brand, bringing together different designers under one umbrella: Talented.

I contributed to the art and it was a map themed illustration of London in 2012, to coincide with the London Olympics that took the brand, and my work in another direction. Distributors and retailers around the work were clambering for me to design their locale and the brand grew into a wider product range and focussed purely on my work.

The demand in running a fast growth manufacturing company, BIDBI, an in-demand lifestyle brand, Talented and creating my own art, was too much.  Over a three year period, I sold my manufacturing company to my management team and closed my sales and manufacturing operations for my brand to focus purely on licensing and moved home to live by the sea with my animals.

Today, my brand is licensed to a curated portfolio of manufacturers across the globe, over two thousand places have been drawn, including 500 universities and colleges in the USA, and I have the freedom to create without the pressure of running a complicated business. It's sold be prestigious museums such as the National Gallery of Art, the Roman Baths Museum, Arc D'Triumph and iconic retailers including Liberty of London.

This week came full circle as the manufacturing company I ran and handed over to my team 7 years ago, is now making the tote bags, to the quality and care that is an essential part of my brand.  So I hope you can find your favourite place and enjoy it swinging from your shoulder, and if not, then let me know which location you would like to me to draw next. And a heartfelt, thank you for supporting my brand over the years :-)