Posted by admin on 12:08 am
There was a nice full page piece in today’s Guardian magazine on Folksy, to quote:
Homespun, recycled wares are a byword for cool in these straitened times. So right now we love folksy.com, an online collective of designers and craftmakers selling everything from knitted egg cosies to felt-covered journals – all oozing handmade charm. And if you’re short on ideas but long on free time, it even tells you how to make things yourself. Perfect for a one-off find – if you hurry.
So, hello Guardian people and thank you for liking us 
Tagged: folksy guardian hello nicewords Category: Home
Posted by admin on 1:09 pm
I’m finding it really interesting how the term ‘Folksy’ has been used recently especially around the current Presedential election campaign in the US. Just look on twitter for who’s talking about Folksy, it’s kinda interesting. Sarah Palin has become the flag bearer of a Folksy ‘way’ She is a Folksian! Maybe we should make her an honourary member if only for the great SEO work she’s done for us ?
image: jay pendergrass (via)
But this raises an interesting aspect of language and etymology, the history of terms and how their meaning changes. In the UK Folksy is tied up with folk music and ‘traditional’ cultural practices. Folksy in the US has far greater currency than in the UK and is used to denote an “earthy”, “of the people”, quality. This seems to be being used negatively in the campaign by the educated and political elite in the US where Folksy has been used as a rather derogatory term to mean “unsophisticated”. How do you see it? What does it mean to you?
Tagged: etymology folksy Category: Home
Posted by admin on 6:46 pm
We were at Interesting2007 today, the day were were hoping to launch a beta beta or rough, rough or half-baked or whatever version of the service. However, we had a few teething problems and the beta beta [or... ] will have to wait a week or so. Still, ‘Interesting’ was excellent. Freakish weather meant Rob and Debs didn’t get to London until 11am – when the conference started – so I [James] leant on Gabriel [Gabriel, thank you!] who was fabulous in helping me create the “craft concept retail space” in the gloomy oak lobby of the Conway Hall.
We set up our stall trying to create a living room environment which kinda worked, but what did work was our “make table” where we beavered away making blinkybugs [see below] and Rob being far more technical hacked a Nintendo controller to make an optical mouse and also made an “ambient orb light” which responded to ‘the internet’. What about the internet it was responding has not yet become clear.
Anyway, we had a great time, got lots of good feedback, not to mention loads of beta testers and a possible invite to do a big festival event this summer and I got to have a brief chat with Matthew D’Ancona [albeit unwittingly] which was marvelous. Thanks Russell and thanks to all those crafters who helped us to provide goods for the event [Lucia, Alice, Zoe, etc...].
Tagged: beta craft folksy interesting2007 Category: Home
Posted by admin on 12:48 pm
One or two people have asked about where the name Folksy originated. I really don’t know. There were a few other names knocking around at the time – zakka [after the Japanese home craft craze] being one and stitchy being another.
Now, having dug around a bit I see that it has a pretty broad use, mainly signifying: informal; familiar; rural and of course to describe the Folk music and fashion ’style’. For me it’s about people and celebrating everyday creativity in an age which often reduces us to Taylorist automatons in offices everywhere [and see Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk on YouTube on how we're killing creativity in the education process]. And if you’re interested it’s worth seeing what other people signify as folksy [and get a sense for how creativity in crafts is flourishing] and there’s no better place to do that than on flickr.
Tagged: etymology folksy name Category: Home
Posted by admin on 5:07 pm
Russell kind of caught us on the hop today. He mentioned Folksy and also said some terribly nice things about me. All correct of course and I’ll sue anyone who says otherwise. So now we have over 100 people subscribed to our “shout” list where we have license to shout. Brilliant!
Next on the to do list is to think of another word for Beta which is a horribly overused and useless moniker now it’s a permanent fixture on any West Coast half-baked IPO / VC hungry thing. “Charlie” would be the logical next step and I have a friend with a dog called Charlie and it’s a nice dog, so that’s as good-a-reason as any. But I feel it tarred with the whole Greek alpha geek brush. So we need to think anew. Russell suggested “rough” which I like but makes me think of Martin Parr-esque images of kids in Northern sink estates. Ideas? We could start a whole new movement for services with “aren’t-quite-ready-but-we’re-going-to-shove-it-out-there-anyway” ethos of community led development.
Anyway, hello. Welcome to Folksy. In the next few weeks we’ll be learning and stressing. And we’ll share that with you in the run up to Folksy launching in some form or other.
Tagged: beta folksy russelldavies Category: Home
