A TALK WITH FFION MORGAN

Ffion started her business ‘Ffion Morgan Illustration’ 4 months ago after graduating from Cardiff Metropolitan University last year. Since graduating she’s has been busy designing and selling her own line of greeting cards, illustrated prints and stickers. When she’s not working hard on her own range of products she works freelance, collaborating with other businesses, designing rebrands and creating illustration commissions. 

Her range of greetings cards never fail to be popular with her customers. She brings new designs out for every season and occasion and they are definitely her best sellers. Ffions take on unique, humorous character illustrations are what sets her products apart from other artists on the market.

Ffion has always wanted to start her own business as she loves creating, however she always kept putting it off as the time just never felt right. Ffion graduated from her illustration degree in the summer of 2020 during the COVID 19 pandemic and thought that it was the perfect time to actually focus on something she’s always wanted to do and put the skills she learnt form her degree to good use. She absolutely loves all aspects of owning a small business from coming up with new designs for products, processing orders to having positive feedback and seeing how much people love her products. With that being said, Ffion did mention that one of the hardest things she has come up against when running her small business is remembering to take time to unplug and rest. 

“I’m usually up until early hours of the morning or spending all day creating new designs for products or packaging orders and I need to remember that its oaky to take a break, have days where I don’t do anything business related and take time to relax and focus on other things without feeling guilty”.

I think Ffion touches upon a really important topic here because I would agree that one of the hardest things about being your own boss is not having someone else telling you when to clock in and clock out. This can lead to you overworking yourself and running yourself into the ground. This can cause exhaustion and can lead to serious health complications due to lack of sleep and chronic stress. Not to mention (put a pandemic aside) when you are working hard all the time it can be so easy to unknowingly isolate yourself and cause distance between you and your friends/ family which can lead to a decline in your mental health. It can be so easy to get so involved and addicted to your work, and the time and effort that you’re willing to put in to ensure the success of your business is such a testament to you as a person, it shows strength, dedication, ambition and commitment, however, it cannot be stressed enough how important it is to take time for yourself in order to recharge, relax and rest.

I also asked Ffion what she would consider to be the most important thing when it comes to operating her business and she thinks that it is crucial to stay true to herself and that she continues to create things that she enjoys and makes her proud.

Recently, Ffion has been taking into consideration what she has to do and changes she wants to make in order to operate more sustainably within her business. She’s been looking into making her packaging more sustainable by using compostable cellophane and eco-friendly tissue paper. She has also been looking into using recycled paper and eco-friendly envelopes as paper is such a huge contribution to de-forestation. Even though it is slightly more costly, by using these alternatives it allows her to create her products whilst operating on a more sustainable level and being mindful about the impact her business has on the environment.

When I asked Ffion to picture her business in five years time and describe what that would look like to her she mentioned that she would absolutely love to be taking her business on full time. she hopes that by then she will have branched out into a range of different products, as she loves the idea of having her own stationery range and also aiming to have a small collection of stock in local retail stores whilst attending Christmas markets and craft fairs as often as possible.

Finally, Ffions advice for someone looking to start their own business would be 

“Don’t put off starting your business. If you’re passionate and absolutely love your idea and you’re willing to put in the hard work absolutely go for it”.

I’ve known Ffion on a personal level for a few years. She is a delight to be around and has an amazing way of finding the positives in difficult, challenging situations and her ability to do that has only been highlighted by the fact that she took one of the most devastating years in our lifetime and came out the other side with her own business which is only moving from strength to strength. It’s been an absolute pleasure talking to Ffion about her business and watching it grow over the past few months. She is such an inspiration for young creatives to look to as she really knows how to use her initiative and her illustration skills to bring about new and fun products. She’s definitely sent to watch out for, I would 100% recommend checking out her products over on her Etsy page (link below) and giving her a follow on social media.

Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/fmorganart

Instagram: @fmorganart