We're hiring! Are you good at organising rugs?

We set up node last year so that we can help a fair trade project/school set up a really nice social enterprise. so far its been going pretty good. Amongst other things we are being stocked by the design museum but there have been other very exciting opportunities that we have not been able to fully realize yet.

There are just 2 of us. Akshay is in Kathmandu and I'm really busy on other projects and to be honest ive no idea how to best do a lot of this stuff. I am offered a lot of opportunities with the rugs but i dont have much business sense, it would be great to have someone on board with a good vision and a more structured approach for growth.

We think we have the potential to scale up. We want to be able to pay ourselves (all voluntary so far) and scale it up to something thats helping lots more people out. we have been offered some VERY VERY exciting exhibitions with some VERY VERY exciting people, and i want to give this project the attention it deserves. 

 

So thats why we are looking for someone to help. If you can make it work and you can make this pay ..you have a job!

for more info on the job see the detailed  description below. you can also see the links below:

chrishaughton.com/node

nodenepal.com

 

 

 

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Are you good at organising stuff? Do you have an interest in design, fair trade and RUGS! If so please drop us an email (address below)

Job title:  Creative project & event manager

Purpose:
  • to co-ordinate an international fair trade design exhibition project
  • to work with designers and Nepal-based manufacturer
  • to promote and market project to museums and retailers in UK and abroad.
Responsible to: The owner
Working with: Designers, illustrators, museums, retailers, manufacturer in Nepal
Salary: Self-employed freelancer
Based: preferably in UK (client is based in London)
Terms: in first instance till December 2012, with potential to extend
Our client is a fairly well known illustrator and animator who has been working in Nepal with a fair trade textile manufacturer.  This manufacturer is a social enterprise that has got great capacity to create one off or small batch produced tufted rugs.
Exciting conversations have been held with a museum and retailer in London who are interested to present a collection designed by up to 20 designers and illustrators later this year during London Design Festival.

Specific responsibilities:

Project management
  • To create a project plan and budget, set up meetings, liaise with our client, keep project on track both financially and in time.
Design management
  • Create a collection of 20 different contemporary fair trade uniquely designed rugs.
  • You will be the main contact between the 20 designers and the manufacturer in Nepal to create, manufacture and deliver rugs to the UK in time.  Responsible for all correspondence, skype conversations, emails etc.
  • To write a design brief for up to 20 designers and illustrators, contact potential designers and liaise with designers, creation of contracts and royalty agreements with designers, all liaison with designers.  There will be a run of up to 50 rugs per design.
  • You will be responsible to create the rug exhibition in London in September with major museum and potential major retailer.
Marketing
  • (Most of designers and illustrators are already known to my client, so little promotion required to get other designers involved)
  • To promote exhibition in London to press, potential retailers, with a view to tour exhibition or show in our outside of UK.
  • Find additional retail and exhibition opportunities.
  • Create online sales through own website or working with partners.
Commercial management
  • You will be responsible for the commercial success of this project, with the main aim to financially support the trade fair manufacturer in Nepal through regular trading.  This is a self-funded project, so no government funding is involved, although some sponsorship opportunities might be possible.
  • You will need to be able to budget and price the collection appropriately, and promote to retailers to show and sell the rugs
  • There is the potential to work here as an agent on a longer term project basis.
Requirements
  • We are looking for a candidate with an entrepreneurial, ‘can do’ attitude, who makes things happen.
  • You have got excellent communication and negotiation skills, ideally working with designers, manufacturers and retailers. The manufacturer in Nepal has been educated at Harvard in US and has very good English.
  • You probably have got a very strong marketing, retail and or design management background, potentially working as an agent.  It would be good if you have got experience in costing, pricing and royalty management.
  • You must be very interested in fair trade.
Fee
You will work as a freelance, self employed agent.  You can work from anywhere, but our client is based in London, and some meetings in London will probably be required.  There might be some travel to Nepal involved (not necessarily).  We expect this project to be commercially very viable, but it is up to you to generate income and your fees.
Project timings
April    Start project, planning, budgeting, write brief, develop contracts, contact designers,    liaison with museum
May     Design to start
June    Manufacturing to start
July     Start promotion
Sept     Rugs delivered in UK
Nov     Exhibition in London
Follow up with other retailers
To apply
Send us your CV and a letter (in total no more than 4 sides of A4, ideally saved as a PDF) detailing why you are the best candidate for this position.  Please include an up to date email address and phone/mobile number.
We will inform you by e-mail if you have been unsuccessful, and we contact you by phone to arrange for an interview in London on Monday 30 April.  We will be able to do skype or phone interviews for candidates outside of London or the UK.
Deadline:        Wednesday 25 April at 6pm
Email to:         info@thedesigntrust.co.uk please include ‘job application’ in the subject line.  You can also use this email if you have any questions about this position.

photo by carolin weinkopf. bear rug by nadia shireen

Filed under  //   fair trade   london   nepal   rug  

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Skype Storytime in Spain

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This was kind of an experiment!  I used skype to do a kind of read-aloud of my books to Libreria Gil bookshop in Santander, Spain. I also showed some of the process of making them. Im a HUGE fan of Editora Milrazones, my spanish publishers, they are just fantastic, one euro of the sales of each book goes to help build a library in Colombia. Un Poco Perdido was actually the first book they published and they have even set up a lovely picture-book blog called un poco perdido! I finally got to meet them last week in Bologna. 

OK! Im going to have to cut down my events now as i really need to get some actual work done!!!

Posted from Santander, Spain

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Pecha Kucha Kathmandu #5

Sworup8

Im so happy that Pecha Kucha Kathmandu is still going so strong!! PKN Kathmandu #5 was on yesterday... facebook event here
Im so proud to have helped start it in motion last year but congratulations to sujan for growing it into a really massive event!!

Photo by Sworup Ranjit

http://pechakucha-kathmandu.com/#!/

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Skype workshop in India

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I just did a skype presentation to the students of the Srishti School of Art Design and Technology in Bangalore India. They are doing a really interesting project developing inventive ways to produce quality cost effective picture books for families who would usually be unable to afford them. I have been twice to Srishti to lecture and do workshops and I think they are really one of the most interesting colleges i have ever visited. very forward thinking in many ways. Its the first time we did this skype talk but it worked really well. Thanks very much to Matt Lee who got me involved 

 'a book in every child's hands'
read more about the project here

http://srishti.ac.in/

Filed under  //   children's books   india   talk  

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George's World Tour

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Prix Sorciéres

A Bit Lost (Un Peu Perdu) just won the Prix Sorciéres prize in France in the youngest category.
view the winners here

Prix

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The People's Rugs

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The rugs were on display for fair trade fortnight at the lovely People's Supermarket
http://www.thepeoplessupermarket.org/

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Design Museum Shop

The owl rugs and owl toys are now available from the Design Museum!!

buy them online here...
A Bit Lost Owl Toy
A Bit Lost Owl Rug


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A Bit Lost: Worksheets

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Click here to download:
Worksheet upp_bn2.pdf (265 KB)
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I was just sent these great worksheets by my lovely spanish publishers. (i love the colouring-in-cowboy in the top left!) Please feel free to print out and use. The animals are all on A4 but the forest scene can be printed at any size. AWESOME!

Filed under  //   Un Peu Perdu   a bit lost   activity sheets   children's books   childrens   kleine eule ganz allein   mama kwijt   un poco perdido   workshop  
Posted from Santander, Spain

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OH NO GEORGE! Trailer

sound/music by matt wand. download the track: smallrocks.bandcamp.com
animation by fraterfilms.com

Filed under  //   Oh No George!   children's books   stoute hond   video  

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Oh No George! Worksheets

Please feel free to download and use these worksheets. They are maximum A3 size but you can print at any smaller size just click to download. 

 

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thanks to omar for the graphic work.

Filed under  //   Oh No George!   activity sheets   children's books   childrens   stoute hond   workshop  

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OH NO GEORGE! Events

Cake

LONDON.......................................................................................

26th Feb 
DESIGN MUSEUM SHOP 
Reading and workshop 2-4.30pm
http://designmuseum.org/families/young-people

27th Feb
People's Supermarket. Fair Trade Exhibition.
Runs for 2 weeks 27th Feb-12th March
http://chrishaughton.com/the-peoples-supermarket

 29th Feb 4.30-5.30
Englands Lane. Reading and signing
http://englandslanebooks.co.uk/

1st March. I will be doing signings in the following shops. pop in if you are in the area.
Foyles CXR
Foyles STP
V&A
Museum of Childhood
Tate Modern

2nd March  I will be doing signings in the following shops. pop in if you are in the area
The Lamb Bookshop
Waterstones Piccadilly
More TBC

3rd March 
Book Launch Night (Victoria Park Books)
http://www.victoriaparkbooks.co.uk/

4th March
Discover Book event. Talk and presentation. 
Stratford 1.15-2pm
http://www.discover.org.uk/

5th Talk.
Fair Trade Design Talk at the Peoples Supermarket
http://chrishaughton.com/the-peoples-supermarket

DUBLIN.......................................................................................

7th March 
PIVOT exhibition of visual curiosities
Childrens Workshop 
http://www.pivotdublin.com/
Filmbase Temple Bar 

Irish Design Shop signing event 5-7pm 
http://irishdesignshop.com/

8th March
TV3 Ireland AM
signings around Dublin
Easons event
Easons event with Chris Judge

9th -11th March
OFFSET
http://iloveoffset.com/

LONDON............................................................................................

15th March 
Presentation London YLG AGM
16th March 
Start of Blog Tour 

PARIS...................................................................................................
17th March
Prix des bébés lecteurs de Nanterre

18th March
Paris Book Fair signing 4-6pm
http://www.salondulivreparis.com/
BOLOGNA............................................................................................
19-22nd March
Bologna Childrens Book Fair
http://www.bolognachildrensbookfair.com/en/
OH NO! what is george doing now? drawing worksheet: please feel free to download/print.

Filed under  //   Oh No George!   children's books   events  

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The People's Supermarket | Fair Trade Fortnight

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I'm going to be doing an exhibition of my fair trade stuff in the window of the Peoples Supermarket for Fair Trade fortnight. 
Feb 27th - March 10. Free

I am also doing a talk  along with Kipepeo designs and a representative from the Fair Trade foundation.
5th March. 7pm. Free

Please come along!

 

 

The People's Supermarket is a sustainable and socially conscious alternative to a regular supermarket. Most of their produce are fair trade or local, they reduce waste by buying the mis-shapen fruit and vegetables that other supermarkets reject and sell it for half price. They cook all their almost out of date produce and make soups and stews for their food counter so they reduce waste and they operate like a co-op and have a volunteer/membership where members vote on how it is run.
There is a documentary about it here

http://www.thepeoplessupermarket.org/

the programme of events for fair trade fortnight is embedded in the pdf below


 

Click here to download:
ft14_tps.pdf (1.57 MB)
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Oh No, GEORGE!: The making of...


FINALLY...! this book has been two years in the making...! This post is just to show where the idea came from, and how the book took shape. its also quite useful for me to put together this post because its always such a long process that i kind of forget where the ideas came from to begin with.

My first idea for this book was a cause and effect sequence called Oh No!... it was an idea for a sort of elaborate circular accident... i may come back to that idea in future in fact...

 

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I was toying with that but was reluctant to settle on it. Another idea was 'Bad duck' about a duck who was bad at being a duck.. swimming and quacking etc... its was a bit like a version of the Ugly Duckling and was sparked by seeing a worried looking duck in London who seemed to be swimming about 2 inches below the water level of his friends

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A third idea featured 'clown man and clown dog' which i think also could be quite good in the future... 

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i didnt realise it at the time but all these ideas revolved around the idea of characters somehow messing up (which i thought would make entertaining drawings) I realised its a lot funnier if there is intention from the character to not mess up, so in the end i scrapped clown man and sort of fused all three ideas to make the dog the comic lead character.

One part of the picture book i try to make use of are the page-turns.. they can be great fun when reading aloud if there is bit of a build up so i decided to build up to a page-turn where the dog messes up somehow... that was how the basic idea came about ... i jotted it down on 3 pieces of A4 which it turned out hardly changed at all from this first sketch.
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some initial character sketches...

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I usually draw from my head without using much reference but i found myself googling 'guilty dogs' to see if i could find some good material. It turns out there's a lot about this on the internet. the video below is really worth watching if you havent seen it.

 

 

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most of this work was done while i was in kathmandu. I went over to get more involved in my fair trade work and ended up staying between there and India for more than 8 months in 2010. I was lucky to work on some super projects there which was the main reason i was very late for my book deadlines. In fact this book was 9 months late and was supposed to have been out last august (!)

I did most of the sketches for george from this room..

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 and i sent the bologna draft from this internet cafe (the monks were on facebook)

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this is me trying to finish it off the last images in the airport on my way home, i had to meet my editors deirdre and lucy the following week and i hadn't done half as much as i had said i had... (!)

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This is the part of the book im most proud of.. the first page builds up in three images to a large close up of george with the text 'what will george do?' When the page turns the following double page spread tells us exactly what george has done.. OH NO!!! 

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as you can see george does some pretty terrible things, but all is forgiven in the end

 

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the end-papers are a kind of before and after 

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i quite liked having a little quote on the title page for A Bit Lost. i decided to go with this one from the stoic philosopher epictetus for George. 

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the final proofs and tweaks were all done in a very intensive few weeks with the help from deirdre and dan when i got back to the UK (my room was being lived in so i did all this from my next door neighbour's place!)

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Oh No George is out on the 1st March 2012 or available for pre-order in these countries, im told there are more to follow soon

Oh No, GEORGE! IRE/UK              here 
Oh No, GEORGE! USA/CANADA    here
Stoute Hond Netherlands                here
Oh Non, GEORGE! France              here
Oh Nein, PAUL! Germany               here
Voi Sinua SULO! Finland                here

 

 

 

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Reviews

 

Kirkus Review USA 

The Guardian UK

Childrens Book Council USA 

Oh Nein Paul! smitzjunior.com Germany


Nominated for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize 2-6 category 

 

 

 The making of 'A Bit Lost' is here 

 

Filed under  //   Oh No George!   children's books   making of   oh nein paul!   oh non george!   stoute hond   voi sinua sulo!  

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Nationale Voorleesdagen

Im in shock at all the events in Holland! The dutch version of A Bit Lost, 'Mama Kwijt' won the Dutch Picture Book of the Year 2012 and as part of the Voorleesdagen (read aloud week) there are many amazing events across the country. It was awarded by CPNB, a read-for-fun/literacy non-profit equivalent to Booktrust or CBI. Each year they choose a book for its read-aloud qualities and on the 18th Jan they celebrated by hosting 'reading breakfasts' (complete with pancakes!) in libraries and schools across the country. Its the 9th year of this award you can read more about it here Im so proud of the book's success in holland as im a huge fan of dutch design and dutch picture books

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Many celebrities were pictured taking part for the press including Princess Laurentien from the Dutch royal family and prime minister Mark Rutte (!) In the last photo there is even a real owl at the school!!!!

 

There was even a reading at Schipol Airport Library

 

There are puppet performances too. The second to last performance was by Ton Meijer in the oba library (the little girl in the picture is pretending she is a sleepy owl about to fall) and the last was by Pagetti jeungdtheatre

It was interesting to see how the story was adapted to performances and to see how each adapts it differently. One of the performances is of Oma Kwijt (I lost my granny!)

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theres even a Mama Kwijt song...(!!!)

I did some press events too, on thursday 19th I opened the amsterdam stock market!!!!!! i had drawn '99%' on my t-shirt in black marker and unzipped my hoodie right before i gonged (!) :)

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At the moment Mama Kwijt is the best selling BOOK in the Netherlands #1 in the book chart (!!!) and also no.12 as there are 2 versions. The bookshops also got involved and there are amazing shop window displays as well as little hand-puppets and bags. 60,000 finger puppets were made by CPNB to be given away free with the books, we really tried to have the finger puppets made fair trade (thank you CPNB) but the cost and timescale sadly could not work out. Then 7 bookshops emailed me and clubbed together to make an order of the fair trade owls too..! Thank you to all the bookshops who supported this!! You can see some of them on sale below...

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This last few days in holland has been INCREDIBLE! im in total shock. To have my book at the centre of such wonderful events promoting literacy and reading for fun in public access libraries is all i could have ever wished for, i cant tell you how honoured i am. I was amazed by the thought, care and humour that went into these events and the quality of the other beautiful children's books and events that I saw. The time and resources that go towards childrens events seem incredible to me, the Dutch certainly seem to be really focused on all the the good things. I have met amazing people in the last few days. Thanks to so much to everyone involved in this amazing project, in all the libraries, Gottmer and CPNB. Hartelijk bedankt!! 

Filed under  //   a bit lost   amn't i brilliant   children's books   childrens   fair trade   kleine eule ganz allein   little owl lost   mama kwijt  

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De Drvkkery: a little exhibition in Holland

I have a little wall of my sketches/prints and rugs from Mama Kwijt in De Drvkkery bookstore in Middelburg take a look here it runs until the end of January. 

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Filed under  //   children's books  

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Camden Food Co.

i did some of the branding for the Camden Food Co's new stores in US and Canada. Here's the Toronto store. The beautiful art direction is by Adam Gallagher at the excellent zeroG  studio in Dublin. They do some really amazing work, thanks for getting me involved!


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Owl bag

this awesome owl bag and owl seat(!) were made by hilde de rooij in the netherlands who makes items based on childrens drawing.
They were drawn by the very talented Merel Goud age 8 and were exhibited in the local library.
www.kindertekendingen.nl 

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Filed under  //   a bit lost   mama kwijt  

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merry christmas

Smallsantas

hope you all have a nice break and very best wishes for 2012 x

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Getting your children's book published: Offset 2010

Myself, Niamh Sharkey and Childrens Books Ireland had a discussion at Offset in Dublin last year under the heading Getting your childrens book published: from idea to publication


For more videos have a look at offset's video page theres lots of great speakers. Hopefully see you at Offset next March. They have another great lineup and i think ill be doing something smallish in the second room.

Filed under  //   children's books   ireland  

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