r e k a m e th t e e M
Gola is a lampshade making business born from lockdown. Mother and son team, Mari and Ifan, cleverly bring their individual senses of style to their range of lampshades, which are made from their studio on the Menai Strait, using intricately detailed old maps. We decided to find out a little bit more about them, and their local business… Tell us about how you came to work together? We (mother and son) found ourselves living under the same roof as lockdown began. Ironically this time unlocked creativity and enterprise in both of us. Ifan is a graphic designer and Mari is an author. Both of us shared ideas during lockdown and began a small business called ‘Gola’ (Welsh word for light) creating designs for lampshades that we started manufacturing
it through to the final product and customer satisfaction. When
ourselves in our pink shed in the garden!
customers send us photographs of our shades in their homes we feel a huge sense of pride.
How would you describe your individual styles? We bring different skills and tastes to the workbench. Our
What’s your most popular shade?
styles vary from the traditional to the retro. We’re both
The map lampshades are very popular as bespoke gifts, but
passionate about our local heritage and recently we have
we’re also delighted that our own design Crawia range is
drawn on local culture and history to create a new design
extremely popular. We print all of our lampshade panels at
inspired by old slate fencing.
www.dannells.com which provide us with a quality product.
Where do you get your design inspiration?
What’s the best thing about running your own business?
Most designs start with “What if…?” Wales’ unique landscape,
The freedom and joy of being our own bosses and organising
its culture, its language and its communities inspire us every
our own timetable to suit our own needs. We absolutely love
day. One of our designs was inspired by our daily walks during
receiving positive feedback, reviews and photographs of our
lockdown. These paths were familiar to us, but we’d never
lampshades from happy customers. We’re also delighted by
actually looked at our surroundings properly. We started to
the fact that we have a number of repeat customers which
pay attention – especially to the striking slate fences along the
confirms that we’re probably on the right track.
paths and back roads of our village. What do you need to consider when creating your designs?
Where would you like to be in ten years? Gola’s dream is to develop our small business into a sustainable
We both consider themes, colour variations and how they look
living for us while reinforcing other local businesses with
when printed on fabric compared to a computer screen. We also
similar aspirations. Realising this dream would impact other
consider the layout of the design ensuring that the dimensions
small businesses around us by strengthening the local supply
will fit different sizes of a drum lampshade, taking care of
chain and reviving the local economy. n
where the join lies. You can explore Gola’s unique range of colourful retro-inspired What’s your favourite part of the whole process?
and custom old map lampshades at www.gola.cymru. You can
We love the whole process from creating the design and seeing
also follow them on Instagram @gola.cymru
NWM 2022 Page 29
