Around February last year I approached Mark Kemp of FortyTwo Studio about the availability of one of the spaces in their new office - the old Church Centre at 35 Mid Stocket Road. Intention was to migrate the whole Doric HQ there.
“Hey Mark, would you consider us as a tenant in your building?”
“Aye, lets talk”
And that’s how it started.
I’d been in the building a fare few times before. We did some photoshoots there when Mark acquired the building just as COVID hit. And whilst I absolutely love the building and all its brutalist features, I hadn’t considered the idea of a “studio” in a while. But in November 22 I posted a pic of a screen print studio (pic below) and how i’d love to have something like that, maybe combined with a shop one day. And whilst the Studio at 35 isn’t a shop, it’s a firm base for us to grow, collaborate and generally develop as a business. And it isn’t in the flat at the top of a ladder in a windowless loft (jokes, I love you loft!).
And so on the 13th December I got handed the keys to our new kingdom!
If you’ve seen our loft you might think how on earth I managed to fill the space. Well I spent from February to Dec sketching - with pencils and in my mind - about where things would go and what it would be like. My original sketch is down below too and isn’t far off!
And so during Christmas and New Year I gathered together my one drill (try pre drilling, counter sinking and screwing with one drill dozens of times!), my two hand saws, scrap wood, new wood and a bucket of enthusiasm and got to it. We build 5 tables for packing orders, curing ink, sorting ink, general messing about and storage. We inherited FortyTwos old table and used that for our screen print press’s. Our old desk came down from the loft and is now a desk again - this is where the print press was before! Countless trips back and forth, a few trips to B&Q (I grew accustomed to the burger van cheeseburgers) and by first week of Jan I was pretty much good to go!
We are of course still settling in and have plenty to do - plants, more shelving, deck wracks, sort out storage, recycling bin - the list is endless. And so this weekend we’ll get printing.
I can’t emphasise enough how different it is already, never mind the printing aspect.! My plan is to simply do what I did before but improve on the process, make good use of the space to print more in each run when needed. I’d also hope to open the doors to visitors at some point - we’ll work out what that looks like later in the year!
Maybe one day i’ll manage to print for other folks too. I have to be realistic and know that whilst working FT and doing Doric I can’t really commit to too much other stuff at the moment!
Thanks to everyone who’s supported us over the last 7 years. I don’t rush anything in life and this is no different! But this is like Stage 2 for Doric. Lets see what its got in store!
