JKR

The opportunity to buy accessible, affordable and idiosyncratic prints online has been around for a good few years, via galleries such as Keep Calm, Product of God and many many others. While other creative industries have seen revenue streams turned on their heads by the internet (for example in music, with expensive CD’s promoted by affordable concerts inverted to “free“ file sharing offset by expensive gigs), and others such as writing seemingly facing a bleak future (what’s the equivalent of gigging for most authors?), the art industry has been opened up. Part of the charm of this new source of images has been one of discovery – a sense that what is hanging on your wall is not the same as that on your neighbours. But the book Habitat have produced above – limited to 4000, featuring illustrations by name artists which can be removed to fit neatly into 50×70 Habitat frames, and priced at a reasonable £60 – sees a mainstream adoption of this approach. Talking to Creative Review, project editor and designer Tim Fishlock sounds as enthusiastic about the results as the bright eyed owner of any indie gallery.

So what’s the point here, apart from “nice one Habitat”? Possibly only that the internet is opening up opportunities and helping drive desire for less mass produced design and decoration. And in the wake of this, high-street brands with the required energy and imagination are producing products in a similar vein. While such artworks are not limited enough to quicken pulses on Antiques Roadshow 2050 (a run of 4000 dwarfs a typical Product of God edition of 50), it does perhaps signify that bigger brands might start producing smaller lines which can generate demand outstripping supply. How neat that a 21st century supply chain can bring back an artisinal sensibility.