We’ve partnered with Gratitude – a spectacular art installation featuring 51 statues, in celebration of our NHS staff and key workers’ sacrifice and dedication. The exhibition is touring around four cities in the UK, so we thought it would be nice to throw a spotlight on one of our creators from the cities on the tour.
In case you didn’t know: all of thortful’s card designs are made by independent creators, whose businesses we’re proud to support. Representing Manchester, the second city on the tour, are duo Hollie and Aimee, aka Jive Prints. We’ve asked a few questions to find out more about them, and what they’re feeling grateful for in 2021.
Over to you Hollie and Aimee…
Tell us a little bit about yourselves and Jive
We’re Hollie and Aimee, a design duo known as Jive, based in Manchester. We work on a range of illustration and design projects for clients, as well as creating our own printed goods for our Etsy shop and designing cards for thortful. Our designs always include fun abstract shapes combined with vibrant colours.
Where do you get your inspiration from?
We get our inspiration from the outdoors, charity shopping and vintage prints and patterns. When we work on a mural project we get a lot of inspiration from our surroundings – we sit there cutting shapes from what we can see around us.
What is your most popular design? And which is your favourite?
Our most popular designs on thortful are always the ones with puns – we like coming up with pun designs, usually food related as we are big foodies! Our favourite design at the moment is “I Loaf you Dough Much” because it just makes us laugh.
What made you decide to sell through thortful?
During lockdown we were searching for ways to sell our designs online as we couldn’t attend markets anymore, and the shops we had our cards stocked in were closed. We loved finding thortful as it’s so easy to use – all you need is a digital design to upload!
What advice would you give to other creatives starting up?
Sell your artwork at markets – you never know who is looking at your work! Also, collaborating with other artists in your area is a lot of fun and you can learn a lot from the process. Don’t be afraid to promote your work and be proud of what you create!
What are you most grateful for?
We’re both grateful for our studio space in Ancoats, it was great having it over the last year because we could escape the house and work creatively together. We’re also really grateful for all the amazing projects Jive’s had over the years – it’s great to look back and reflect on all the amazing opportunities we’ve had!
Check out Jive Prints Cards
So what are you feeling grateful for, during this difficult year? We think most of us are feeling grateful for the hard work of our NHS staff, and that’s the inspiration behind Gratitude. The free exhibition runs for ten days in Birmingham beginning 20 August, moves to Manchester on 3 September, and continues on to Edinburgh and London later in the year. For more information about dates and to book your tickets, visit the Gratitude website.
