In our Meet the Maker blog series, we profile the independent creative businesses behind some of our product ranges in the British Library Shop (both online and at our St Pancras, London site). This month, we meet Jan Vincent from Pavilion, a design-led studio producing colourful greeting cards, gift wrap, notebooks and more.

Pavilion was launched by Jan Vincent and Robert Wood in January 2018, after 18 months of designing and building their first collection of cards. Since then, they have expanded their ranges by adding new product types such as notebooks and gift wrap, and launched new partner brand affiliate:107 in January 2021.

'The inspiration for both Pavilion and affiliate:107 comes from far and wide, I think that’s really evident when you look at the products – our backgrounds are in fashion and womenswear print design so we love pattern making and floral prints, but we also love modern graphic and abstract art which is a huge influence too.'

The business is run from their home in Norwich, where they have a room for designing and admin, and have recently converted a spare bedroom into a stockroom – as Jan says, ‘with lots of shelving to keep us organised’! Each season they launch three-four new ranges so there’s lots to keep track of, and they’ve also added new products such as pencil sets, which are one of Jan’s favourite items:

'One of our latest products is a six piece pencil set which we are really proud of – this was a big leap of faith for us to add to the collection as it was designed and developed during lockdown, and we had to work remotely with our manufacturers to create the set.'

As with so many independent makers and creators, Covid-19 has impacted Pavilion’s business with sales quickly dropping, as well as work outside of the brand going on hold, so they took the decision to close temporarily. This gave the duo time to focus on developing their partner brand affiliate:107, which they’d wanted to do for a long time. They’re now seeing business pick up again, and are looking forward to attending a trade show in September, as well as launching more new designs.

'We feel very honoured to be included in the selection of products available at the British Library Shop. We knew that the shop was an award-winning store that sold many brands that we love, so to be stocked there makes our hard work worthwhile.'

Although Jan confesses he is more of a creative mind, and Robert is the business mind behind Pavilion, he offers this advice for anyone starting out with their own small business:

'Plan and research before you set out on your business venture. Use every resource that is available to find out as much info as you can about how to set up and how to go about launching.'

Browse our Pavilion range

Visit the Pavilion website

Follow Pavilion on Instagram

Finding you just the book you need. Restoring a 500-year-old manuscript. Welcoming you to your new favourite exhibition. Our staff do some amazing things. And some have been volunteering their time to do even more: meet some of the British Library team helping to save lives and move us out of the pandemic.

The British Library building in St Pancras sits next to what is affectionately known as the Crick: the Francis Crick Institute for biomedical research. Scientists and staff across the Crick have set aside their normal work to volunteer expertise and facilities to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and, since January 2021, 55 British Library staff have been volunteering at the on-site vaccination centre.

From registering arrivals to administering the actual jabs, each five-hour shift helps deliver the Oxford Astra Zeneca vaccine to up to 800 people a day.

Elizabeth, who manages commercial hire events at the Library, has transferred her organisational skills to co-ordinating the Library’s volunteers: ‘This has been an amazing opportunity for us to be doing something really worthwhile to help the battle of Covid! I was delighted to have been asked to help co-ordinate this – but the real stars are our volunteers who were so enthusiastic in their response. It has been a real privilege to be involved.’

The vaccination clinic is run by Middlesex University and UCLH, with volunteers from other organisations, including the Royal Free Hospital and Kings College London University, and Library staff have appreciated the opportunity to meet people working on the front line of the pandemic.

Blerina

‘On my first shift I worked alongside people from the Francis Crick Institute and the Wellcome Trust – they’d been at the forefront of the Covid-19 vaccine work, so it was amazing to hear some of their stories,’ says Blerina, part of the team that manages the Library’s relationship with Government and Parliament, and co-lead of the Library’s climate change campaign.

For Dede, from our Visitor Experience team, ‘the best bit has been seeing the centre register and vaccinate more than 30 homeless people a day.’

Dede

Pauline, one of our Visitor Experience Assistants, has been volunteering once a week and recently became a vaccinator.

Bianca

Bianca works on a project cataloguing the Library’s huge collection of maps, cartographic books and atlases. She chose to volunteer because ‘helping other families made me feel like if I was helping my family in Brazil, sharing the load with my uncle who is a doctor and has been working as much as he can, helping create a safe environment for my brother to be a proper teenager. It felt like if people help everywhere, nobody needs to be left behind.’

Veronica is a book conservator, helping to care for and preserve the Library’s collection and enable continued access to it for researchers. Like Bianca, she had thoughts of her home country in mind when she signed up to volunteer: ‘My birthplace in north Italy was the epicentre of the first Covid-19 outbreak in February 2020. It felt important to try and do something. The Library gave me this great opportunity to help many people to get vaccinated and seeing their family again, so I seized it.’

Rosie

Rosie works in our Sound Archive, clearing copyright on sound recordings and assessing them for sensitive material, as part of the Unlocking our Sound Heritage project, which aims to digitally preserve and improve access to audio archived at the British Library and around the UK. She volunteers at the Crick in administration and marshal roles. ‘The element I love the most is being part of history, and this wonderful effort to drive the vaccination programme. I have felt quite helpless and overwhelmed by the situation we are living though, and this helps me feel like I’m doing something to counteract the difficulties people have or are facing.

‘It gives a great insight into the work of the NHS and the scientific experts in these tumultuous times. I’m proud to be supporting them in some small way.’

The British Library has a growing culture and learning programme in the Leeds region, which is home to the Library’s site at Boston Spa near Wetherby, writes Kenn Taylor, Lead Culture Producer for the Library’s northern programme.

During the Covid-19 lockdowns, this programme continued to develop, including this online participatory project developed with the Kushy Dil community group in Beeston, Leeds, which took place between March and May 2021. As an output of the project, the group have written this guest blog, exploring the ways they were able to use the Library’s online resources, and a range of other sources, to research the history of their local community:

We are Kushy Dil (Happy Heart) Women’s Group, based in Beeston, South Leeds. Pre-lockdown we used to get together weekly to take part in exercise, healthy eating, art sessions and above all having a cuppa and a laugh! However, as the pandemic stopped us from meeting up, we got together online. During this time we had the privilege of taking part in a community research project with the British Library. Our journey of discovery was fascinating, intriguing, and fun.

We started researching about our community through the British Library platforms. We all had different areas of interest from local schools to our fathers’ workplaces. We shared, discussed, and reflected each week on what we found. We found funny stories and fascinating facts but above all worked together. The culmination of the 6-weeks resulted in us writing this blog we hope everyone will enjoy reading.

“My name is Sarful and I chose the topic of the places my father worked and lived in Beeston. I lost my father at a very young age; due to this I have always been interested in researching about the places he knew. One of the places my father worked in was the Robinson and Birdsell factory from 1957. The factory is still in Beeston; I have taken a recent picture (below) which gave me a sense of closeness to my father.

A recent photo of the former Robinson and Birdsell factory.

Letters from the Robinson and Birdsell factory relating to Sarful's father.

In the British Library archives, I found information on the houses we lived in. I enjoyed researching on people in the past living at our addresses. I was intrigued to find out that you could buy a house and shop on Tempest Road for £55 in 1906 and in 1941 a lady called Miss Clare Wilson lived on Tempest Road and won a crossword competition.” 

Looking at houses was a popular choice with Ambia also exploring them: “I chose the topic of houses because my father was one of the first Bangladeshi people to buy a house in Beeston. The house my father bought is still our family home. I found in the British Library archive that my current house on Stratford Terrace used coal mines and to this day I still have the door to where they kept all the coal in my cellar. I found it interesting that in the 1800s the houses that I have lived in were not built on the maps that we had access to. It was built on open land.

Detail from an 1893 map of Beeston.

The same area of Beeston, depicted in a 1968 map.
I enjoyed looking up different articles about Leeds and reading them as I found them to be very interesting and I liked looking at how differently they were written back in them days.”

Salma meanwhile: “wanted to research on: Harlech Terrace (my street), Mosques of Beeston and Cross Flatts Park. For all three topics I used British Library maps, newspaper archives and information from the internet.

A recent photo of Jamia Masjid Abu Huraira mosque.

In the olden days there used to be house mosques. There was a house on Rowland terrace called shah Kamal-Jamie-masjid. On Stratford Street there was a house mosque called masjid Umar which still exists but is vacant now. They expanded this masjid and built what is now known as ‘Masjid Ibrahim’. Kashmir Mosque Welfare Association was one of the first mosques in Beeston. It transformed into Abu Huraira masjid.

I also found some interesting information about Women’s Liberation Movement and female rights in the 1980s.”  

Amelia really enjoyed the online talk with the British Library Reader Services staff. “Nicola been showing us how to search for maps and Stewart Gillies talks about the News Collection of British Library. It is amazing thousands of newspaper titles.”

Amelia was interested in her local children’s school: “I chose to research on Beeston Hill St. Luke’s Primary School as all my three children went to this school. Summer 2021 my youngest is going to finish his primary education. It is always an emotional time for me as a parent to sit in the school hall and watch the leavers’ assembly. I found some interesting photos and facts about the school including stories in the newspaper archive about fundraising for it. The way to collect donations through giving a concert goes back a long way. It is good to know the attendance was large but would be interesting to find out the total amount collected.”

Clippings of fundraising efforts for St Luke's Primary School, Beeston Hill, found using the British Newspaper Archive.

A recent photo of the foundation stone of St Luke's Primary School, Beeston.

Sarful beautifully said how everyone felt about this project in the group. “I enjoyed doing this as a group. Kushy Dil is a well-established Bangladeshi Women’s group in Beeston. We all have similar interests and come from similar backgrounds. We also know each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and I feel this played a big part in us achieving this amazing piece of work.”

Sarful Bibi, Ambia Khatun, Amelia Ayub, Salma Yasmin, Thahmina Begum
Kushy Dil Women’s Group