artefact update #1

what's this all about

I wouldn’t normally ask anyone to read more than just a text from me so I’ll lay out the general idea at the top here so you know what you’re getting into. The point of all this is to connect with all the people who’ve come to know artefact since we opened and maybe aren’t so familiar with the people and the ideas behind all that, on top of that I think it’s a good idea to lay out in plain text what exactly we do. Part of this is also an effort on our part to exemplify and promote the spirit of inclusivity and honesty among small independent businesses. Transparency in what we want to achieve as well as the difficulties we’re facing is something that our community deserves as well as being something done by other businesses that has helped stave of complete nervous breakdowns for me at least. This is also a fundamental step towards outlining how people can help and more importantly towards asking for it.

who we are

Artefact is a small team of 3, Jane & James who started the company in 2021 as a way to share their passion for vintage furniture (and as an emergency solution to the rapidly growing furniture collection that threatened to overtake their home), and Alex, Jane’s son and freelance designer who joined the team in 2022 originally to help out with social media but I think we all know how that turned out.

While we're all closely related (literally family) we're united by our values, artistically and more broadly. I wouldn't say these values can be laid out as a code so much but I'd like to try and break it down in the pursuit of sharing ourselves more.

HONESTY Like Dieter Rams said ‘Good design is honest.’, we never want to appear as something we're not and at the end of the day we're people no different from whoever's on the other side of the counter. We don't glam up shoddy furniture and hock it for more than it's worth, neither would we claim to know what on earth we're doing most days.

COMPASSION Life is hard and fewer support systems are available every day. While we can't fix all of your problems I truly hope you know each of us cares about each of you. if you need help you can quite literally walk up to us and ask. This is the reasoning behind our free events and low markups across the board.

CREATIVITY Why do things the way they're being done. Creativity isn't just for creative practices. I doubt we're alone in our general opinion on the state of the world. If you don't like the way somethings done, why not do it a different way yourself?

COMMITMENT While it's all well and good saying this, you need to back it up and you need to have consistency throughout all you do. It's important to us that we demonstrate this and more importantly improve upon it. This is an ongoing challenge as we're stretched thin but it's something we admire in others and want to be as good at as possible.

what we do

If there's one horse I'll always beat, no matter how dead, it's the point that we're not just a coffee shop. I think this is born mostly from a fear that we’re not clear enough about what exactly it is we do and I hope that this serves as a good step on the path to clearing that up.

When the shop was first conceived the plan was ‘To reduce demand for mass produced homeware and showcase classic design that is built to last by salvaging, restoring, and selling quality vintage furniture affordably and accessibly’. After spending all of 5 seconds inside 71 Roscoe Street, we were building a coffee shop too; I remember the 3 of us nestled in a booth at Tabak repeating over and over “You can sit on a gorgeous couch, drink a nice coffee and enjoy the whole experience so much you take it home with you.” like we’d just come up with the idea for slicing bread. It wasn’t long after this that we’d completely spiralled into a multipurpose events space / coffee shop / vintage homeware emporium / creative hub / last bastion against corporate greed / whatever else. To get an idea of what all that looks like after 10 months we currently host a wide variety of events, as free and open to the public as possible (live music, exhibitions, performance art, craft and education to name a few); an affordable and independent location for film, photography and meetings; we showcase local artists and makers and do whatever we can to bolster the creative community whether it be something as small as advice to borrowing kit or the venue for your next gig.

I think that what I’m trying to get at here is that what we do is a constantly growing as we meet more people and diversify our influences - all that to say what we do is shaped almost entirely by the people we do it for: you!

what we want to do

Going forward we want to continue offering as much as possible to everyone that walks through our doors, that mostly consists of keeping prices low as coffee and furniture are about as close to essentials as luxury goods can get if you ask me, and improving the space that we believe is becoming a much needed hub for creatives while expanding the ways in which we can help.

It would be naïve to assume that there are not things the majority of our customers would like us to change and more naïve still to not want those changes made. Everyone’s a critic it’s true but doesn’t everyone deserve to get what they want at least a little bit? The most glaring improvement we need to make is that heating situation: it’s been a cold winter and I’m eternally grateful for all of you who braved the icy couches. There’s also the hand dryer that’s currently only decorative and the low number of places to charge laptops, phones, etc. and these are things we’re fully aware of and have every intention of dealing with.

We’d also like to expand our menu, I get asked daily if we have any sandwiches or lunch type food and I’m so close to just offering one of you guys my meal deal. Alcohol! We don’t have a full time alcohol license so we only serve on special occasions (with permission from the council) and with summer around the corner it’d be lovely to have that option for you all. Coupled with this are our opening hours, planning permissions mean we can’t open any later than we already do so for those sweet summer evenings it’d be nice to have you around a little longer.

going forward

From [date] we’re going to make some changes to our prices. As well as balancing a few things that we misjudged when we first opened and had less an idea what we were doing, we are going to be making some small increases to help us deal with rampant price hikes across the country. As it stands we barely pay ourselves, off the top of my head I would say less than 15% of the money artefact has made goes into our pockets, the vast majority is invested back into the business. We don’t imagine that you’re not in the same boat as us so I give you every assurance that we’re committed to affordability and accessibility.

As of TODAY we are accepting donations through our website, this website! We ask that you donate what you can, no amount is too big or too small, even sharing this makes a huge impact. LINK HERE.

To demonstrate our commitment to the community we’re asking for help from, I’ve got a few plans to further uphold our community coming VERY SOON. This will include a local music day featuring artists from the community who can submit music as well as a way to display what’s playing; a community noticeboard for job postings, sales, requests, casting calls, you name it and a lot mor. I’ll also be fashioning some kind of suggestion box to make your input even more direct.

We also massively appreciate sharing artefact with the people you know, we have a non existent marketing budget and rely heavily on word of mouth - of course it would help even more if you were able to share this post specifically.