2022 Craft ACT's Annual Report

Goal 3: Value
Educate the community about the potential of contemporary craft and design to
inform public agendas, promote wellbeing and community cohesion, and forge viable
commercial pathways.
Weaving City Sessions with Jessika Spencer, DESIGN Canberra Festival, 2022. Photography 5foot
Effective
communications
Our Craft ACT and DESIGN
Canberra Festival activities
continue to be well-supported
by the local media. The power
of our contemporary craft and
design has been effectively
communicated to inform public
agendas, promote wellbeing, and
our continuous efforts in forging
viable commercial pathways.
Craft ACT engaged the digital
marketing agency, Tilt, to
advertise the DESIGN Canberra
Festival programs to regional and
interstate audiences and raise
brand awareness of Canberra as a
global city of design. This resulted
in a significant increase of 95%
in new audiences engaging with
the Festival website with interstate
visitors to the Festival increasing
by 35% from 2019.
Sydney-based creative media
public relations specialists,
Articulate, were engaged
to provide a strategic
communications campaign
designed to support the objectives
of DESIGN Canberra with particular
focus on expanding the national
profile of the Festival in published
media articles nationally. The
results of this were articles and
interviews with highlights such
as; Australian Financial Review’s
Life & Leisure, The Australian
Design Review, Architecture &
Design, Concrete Playground,
The Canberra Times: Panorama,
and the Canberra Weekly; and
radio interviews with ABC Radio
Canberra.
Effective communications
snapshot:
247,517 DESIGN Canberra
website visits (↑21%)
157,983 Craft ACT website visits
(↑84%)
14,922 social media followers
(↑ 65%)
85 media articles
7 radio interviews
4 video interviews
Enhanced digital
presence +
engagement
Craft ACT is dedicated to
engaging its community of
artists and supporters in as
many ways possible. During
the COVID-19 pandemic, we
provided opportunities for digital
engagement with our Artists'
Studios Stories videos, Nurture
online workshop programs, and
the DESIGN Canberra Creative
Journalling Challenge.
In 2022 we continued to grow on
this foundation of digital offerings
with an online exhibition, online
workshops, Meet the Maker videos
(supported by Home by Holly), and
live streaming of all openings and
public talks via Instagram. This
resulted in an expansion of the
reach in the types of audiences
we connected with online. Our
DESIGN Canberra Instagram page
grew its following to 10,178 people
and our Craft ACT page grew its
followers to over 8,075 people—
demonstrating the success in our
digital engagement strategies.
The 2021 Creative Journalling
Challenge online exhibition was
made available online early in the
year to coincide with the beginning
of the 2022 Artistic Program. The
online platform enabled the online
community to have an intimate
look into the submitted and
winning journals with 1,382 page
views.
As part of DESIGN Canberra
Festival we held two online Daily
Creative Practice workshops, Pen
and Watercolour with Sally Black
and Ideation and Sketching with
Tom Skeehan. With 82 participants
across both workshops, we were
able to involve a new and wider
audience that otherwise could not
engage with the Festival.
Expanding our reach, Craft ACT
live streamed all exhibition opening
speeches, artists talks, launches,
and parts of symposiums via
the Craft ACT and DESIGN
Canberra Instagram pages.
Improving accessibility using new
technologies available through
social media platforms has been a
game changer in how audiences
participate in our creative spaces.
In addition, it has not only
increased our reach, but made it
accessible to those who cannot or
could not attend.
Membership
Our membership of craft
practitioners, artists, designers,
and makers at all career stages
is at the heart of Craft ACT. Our
members give us purpose; bring a
regional, national, and international
perspective and expertise to our
artistic programs; and inspire
us consistently. It is an honour
31