OUR STORY
Who are we? We’re Jane Tobitt & David Wardle and Bold & Noble is our family business. Back in 2007, we had our first baby and were struggling to find wall art for his bedroom, so we set about creating our own range of prints, and Bold & Noble was born.
We’d spent the previous decade working in London’s design industry as an established book cover designer (David) and in branding and art direction (Jane). So, with granny babysitting, we worked nights designing our first collection of 12 screenprints at our kitchen table. We set up an online shop and packed orders ourselves, balancing postal tubes on the buggy for the post office run.
In our first few months some serendipitous luck led to features in Living Etc, Elle Decoration and The Sunday Times. Business flourished, with John Lewis, The V&A Museum, Heals and many wonderful independents stocking our designs and we moved from the kitchen table to a small local studio. We retired the buggy and employed some people to help with the packing and post runs.
We’ve worked our socks off, expanding our range from wall art to tea towels, wallpaper and ceramics. All the while, we’ve kept our vision and ethos the same, to create products that don’t cost the earth, financially or ecologically, championing local. Steve, our screenprinter, and our first partnership, is just 4 miles from our studio. Abigail works with us at a Lancashire wallpaper mill. Kathy’s team in Lincolnshire make our tea towels, and David and his daughter in Stoke-on-Trent decorate our ceramics.
From 1 to 3 children, our family has grown alongside our business, and we now work from a purpose-built studio adjacent to our home in Hitchin, Hertfordshire. True to our roots, we love having our business and family under one roof, even if the stapler often goes AWOL and the children don’t always respect the zen workspace memo.
- Have a nosey at Our Studio to see how we created our dream workspace.
- Check out what we’re up to in the studio right now by following us @boldandnoble.
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