My favourite kind of shops on Etsy are the ones that are packed full of a variety of items, usually its hard to find a shop were I like everything they sell. So when I discovered Vivid Please I was in awe a little... Vivid Please is run by Vicky & David, two creative minds who create kitsch and quirky items with a wide range of products from tote bags to badges and adorable gift sets, its not hard to see why I'm slightly in awe with them especially since they have a passion for eco friendly gifts with an aim to sprinkle a little magic in your life. Below I speak to the Vicky about Vivid Please.
Firstly can you tell us a little about Vivid Please and how it all began?
Hello! We are Vicky & David, also known as Vivid Please when we are
together. We met whilst working together at an advertising agency and
quickly discovered we had a lot in common; mainly that we both had a
cracking(ly bad!) sense of humor and an obsession with stationery and a
huge crush on anything quirky and unique. We both have really creative
backgrounds and have always stuck out a bit wherever we go. That's no
bad thing, but certainly makes life much more interesting! Whenever we
hung out we would come up with ideas of things we needed or wanted but
couldn't find and decided to start making a few things for ourselves.
Needless to say, our oddities started gaining a lot of interest and
requests from our friends, so we decided to take things a little more
seriously and opened our Etsy shop :) We now sell our prints, stationery
and accessories to people all over the world and have over 100 items in
stock online!
I love shops that don’t just fit into one category and Vivid Please is
exactly this with the aim to ‘sprinkle some Vivid Please magic into
every area.’ Why is it important to you to cater to more than one area
rather than sticking to one product type? What other items can we expect
from Vivid?
I think the easiest way to describe what we have as "Creative ADHD". We
find it really difficult to focus on just one category. I think it's
hugely challenging create a shop full of fantastic jewelry for instance.
I don't like the idea of limitations and find it rather stifling, but
have a massive amount of respect for those that have that talent! We
started Vivid Please because we wanted to make people crack a smile even
doing the most trivial things - for instance our pencils will hopefully
make the next board-meeting a little more entertaining! For us it's
about having strong and coherent branding that helps all the different
elements work under one roof. Our shop focuses more on a category of
person opposed to a type of product. We want to be able to sprinkle some
of our magic wherever we can :D We have ideas-a-plenty of what we do
next, but stationery and accessories are defo key moving forward... we
may even attack your make up bags soon!
Your products are so quirky and adorable, how do you come up with
creative designs and know what is right for the Vivid Please brand and
what isn’t?
oOoh! Good question! I think for us, as what we come up with next could
be absolutely ANYTHING, we have to think very carefully about who else
would like it. We have an idea of the kind of people that 'get us' which
is hugely important when you're a maker. Do your research and listen to
the results! That aside, we tend to get a really good gut feeling about
the ideas that make it into the shop. I wouldn't sell anything that we
weren't both extremely proud of! A good test to decide on weather or not
it's a keeper is to imagine yourself with a little stall full of your
products. Picture the person who always made you feel a little
inadequate about yourself (we all have those!) and imagine how you would
feel if they came up to your table. A little embarrassed? Ditch it.
Ready to show them how wrong they were for doubting you? You've found
your winner! It may sound terrible, but it does happen in reality. When
you're in this business you need to put yourself out there and your
heart on the table. Eventually you're going to bump into someone you
used to avoid and you need to be super confident and proud of your work.
I'm not saying that only their opinion matters, but that you have to
have faith in your work. Only you can give that to yourself! If you're
doubting it before it's even finished you're not going to be able to
sell it as you don't believe in it.
Since Vivid Please is the result of two creative minds, how do both of your interests and creative skills come/work together?
I hate to say it, but we are that annoying couple that can finish each
others sentences! We had a really similar upbringing and have a lot of
the same interests. If one of us hurt ourself, the other feels it...
haha, ok, we're not that intense, but we do have a lot in common and
like the same taste in branding and design, a love of vintage and kitsch
things which makes it much easier to create things together. If you
don't share a vision with someone it can be really difficult to
successfully work together. I've worked with a lot of creative people in
my day (not that I'm that old!) but this is the first person that I've
really clicked with when it comes to what I'm on about. That's really
rare to find - which is why I'm keeping him all to myself! Ha! Having
said that, there is aspects of business which I really struggle with
(hello accountants!), but David freaking thrives on and vice versa, so
there is a natural divide in our daily tasks and what each of our roles
entail. We're both delighted that we don't have to deal with the tough
side of things!
How important is being eco-friendly to you?
Incredibly important! We want the planet to be around forever, so to not
do your part to look after it is pretty dumb. Whilst we create a lot of
paper goods and are hardcore fans of sending and receiving post, we
work hard to reuse and recycle in every aspect of our lives to make up
for it :) Being hardcore lovers of DIY, I'm sure our carbon footprint
has been reduced slightly by our love of 'make do and mend' attitude to
life!
Describe Vivid in three words:
Quirky, playful and affordable!
Your blog is filled up with many tutorials where do you come up with so many ideas?
We both LOVE stuff... but the good stuff often costs a lot of money
which we don't have! We both love to experiment so whenever we see
something we'd love to get but cant afford we try and work out how to do
it ourselves. There is a LOT of trial and error, but a lot of fun and
great ideas happen upon those mistakes. I don't think it's possible to
fail; you just create something a little different with a lot more
character :)
Can you tell us a little bit about your creative process?
When one of us has a good idea, the first thing we do is tell the other.
Often the idea will get vetoed (there are a lot of nonsense ideas!) but
when we both agree that 'this HAS to be done!" we'll get to work.
Whoever came up with it tends to squirrel off and scribble out exactly
what they're on about. Once it's at a point where you're happy with it,
you show it off to the other person. It then will go one of three ways -
we'll agree that 'something's missing' and it we will hold off on it
till we're ready to develop it. The other person will add to it and
really make it "Vivid" or we'll work straight from the original. I
originally created the "I pugging love you" card as a gift for David as
we are both obsessed with pugs. When I gave it to him he was so ecstatic
about it that we put it straight into our shop. Now it's our best
seller! All in all, we create most of our products by ourselves in our
little studio. Occasionally we will source another maker to produce it
if we don't have the facilities like our notepads. You can rest assured
that a lot of love and good vibes has gone into every item we ship out
:)
Starting up a creative business can be a little scary at times, did you
find there were many obstacles to overcome/have any advice for those
wanting to start out?
People think that running your own creative business is easy. They
couldn't be more wrong! You're not in that office bubble where someone
else has your back / will point out when you've done something wrong or
that you can go to when you don't know what to do next. You're on your
own! And it's not all just fun colouring in and working on cool new
ideas either; you'll need to learn about SEO, taxes, and how to rock the
social media outlets. You're right in that if you set up your own
business you wont need to work 9 to 5 though... because it's more like
24/7! Why did I do it? Because I love being my own boss. Because I
spend every day working on something that I believe in. Because when it
does go right, you know that it is because of your hard work. You can't
get that in any other job and it is totally and completely worth all the
obstacles you overcame and sacrifices you made to do it. The best piece
of advice I could give you is to take your time, do your research and
trust yourself. If you get asked to do something (creative or not) and
your heart's not in it, don't do it. I'm a strong believer in things
happening for a reason; don't fret if you missed out on something or got
it wrong or didn't 'make the cut' - it wasn't meant to be. Keep your
head down and work hard, your time will come :)
Describe your perfect morning:
Mmmm! Sleeping in till 9am, having a bacon brunch with David and then going thrifting for odd trinkets and new ideas; bliss!
A motto for life?
Don't do anything by half!
