To begin this post we want to say a huge thank you to each and every customer, supporter, follower, fan and collaborator. None of what we have achieved over the past 10 years would have been possible without you. It is a constant honour, joy and privilege to be able to share our work with each and every one of you all across the world from our studio in Manchester and the reason we continue to improve every aspect of our craft.
It’s difficult to quantify the intensity of the last 315,569,520 seconds since we began our journey but we are ecstatic to have reached this is a huge milestone. From the very beginning, our aim was to spend 10 years committed to a single project of building a company that we would be proud to be part of. Principles of timeless design, industrial craft and making tools that would inspire and last a lifetime.
There have been many highs and lows along the way that make this day even more special. From personal challenges to professional successes our story of building AJOTO has been a little unconventional. Over the coming weeks we plan to share a few more stories and photos through a short series of journal posts such as; Launching AJOTO on an old laptop in a cafe, our short lived obsession with the colour purple, crowdfunding The Pen on Kickstarter, freezing cold art studios where we lived on camp beds, moving our studio Manchester when we ran low on money, the realities of working directly with factories in the UK, our many travels and journeys across the world meeting exceptionally talented people that have challenged and changed our understanding of craft and finding inspiration in the most unlikely of places. So, for those of you who enjoy digging a little deeper we hope, there will be something new to learn.
In addition to this, we have plans to launch a series of special projects over the coming year that we’ve been working on for a while now starting with an illustrated artwork work by the renowned Manchester-based Illustrator Alex Sylt aka Crookedcartoon. We are really excited to share this with you all!
Chris & Marta
Aka AJOTO
READ MORE ABOUT THE PROCESSES BEHIND AJOTO