Design & the Market: Finding a Business (Assignment 1)

Our first assignment for the ‘Design & the Market’ module is to research and interview a business of our own choice then present our findings to the rest of the class. This project aims to develop our understanding of what running a business entails and give us some insight into the types of business models that operate within the creative sector.

Working in a group with three other girls from my discipline (Vikki Kidd, Hollie Edwards and Danielle Carnegie) we discussed a few businesses we were interested to know more about such as; ‘Graven Images’, ‘Ice Cream Architecture’ ,‘Blacksheep’ before all agreeing on a London based design duo ‘Not Tom’.

We liked ‘Not Tom’ due to their approachable laid back identity, the fact that they are a fairly young company (founded in 2009) but have already worked on high profile events such as London Fashion Week 2011 and we are all interested in exhibition/ furniture design which they specialise in. We felt that as they are quite a young company we would be able to relate to them and ask them questions about their start up and where or what they’re aiming for in the future.

After deciding on a business we e-mailed them. Fortunately they e-mailed us back really quickly so we could get the ball rolling to set an interview date. We were prepared to travel down to London to conduct the interview face to face however they said that it would be best to skype instead as they felt their offices would be too small and we would have a wasted trip. We will be interviewing them this week and we have some ideas that will hopefully make up for the fact we are not seeing them in their office space.

This week will be dedicated to doing more research on them, getting together as a group to set our questions and most likely having a trial run to calm our/my nerves!