The Business Start-up guide is aimed specifically at designers who want to start their own business but find the prospect daunting. It is available as free pdf download on the Design Trust’s website, as it is 80 pages, you may wish to order a bound version for £5.00

It covers the main topics that a fledgling business must address and provides continuous signposting to business support agencies and services. It is also an information resource that lists useful websites and publications. It forms the core of The Design Trust’s educational website, http://www.thedesigntrust.co.uk

The Guide should be read in conjunction with The Design Trust newsletter, which contains topical information about business support for designers and is published bi-monthly. If you want to be notified of newsletters as they go online, go to http://www.thedesigntrust.co.uk to sign up; there is no charge.

The Guide also looks to the medium term of the creative business in its chapter on professional development schemes. These schemes are run by organisations which address the specific issues that face design-led businesses – businesses that have the dual targets of creative and of commercial success.

This edition of the Guide, unlike either of its predecessors, is the result of a partnership between The Design Trust and other organisations. For this edition our partners have been the Crafts Council, Design Factory, Northumbria University School of Design, Surrey Institute of Art & Design University College and University of Central England – Birmingham Institute of Art and Design.

For more information on Design Nation and other Resources, please contact the Design Trust’s wesite.