Allistair Burt is the maker behind EatHaggis.com, a range of contemporary Scottish design products including T-shirts, mugs, cards and prints.
What’s the story behind your brand?
I’m actually originally an architect. I worked for 15 years in commercial architecture but in my own time I also worked on a range of odd projects; from major exhibitions, illustration commissions, short films for Channel 4, building storytelling machines, starting a "religion" and travelling around Scotland with an air-hostess trolley. I started making funny little cards and prints based on some of these projects, especially the fake "religion" one, and they started to sell well to shops.
The Eat Haggis name comes from the first "Scottish" product I made. I was asked to create a St Andrew's Day poster for a friend’s event. It was a few years after the original "Keep Calm and Carry On" poster had been rediscovered in an old bookshop but before it had been pounced upon by other retailers and had been memed across the internet.
My friend wanted something simple, Scottish that would be the antithesis of that poster. We played with a few different variations, like "Eat Haggis and Keep Calm" etc, but then "Ceilidh On" fell into place and it just worked. I didn’t think anything of it until the fifth or sixth person that had spotted it on my blog asked if they could get a print and I realised we had created something really popular. I decided to adopt it as the tongue-in-cheek name of a new Scottish brand.
What do you make?
I create a range of contemporary Scottish design products including T-shirts, mugs, cards and prints. As well as selling online to our fellow Scots and lovers of Scotland both at home and abroad, I also work with the National Trust for Scotland, John Lewis, the National Galleries, Glasgow Museums and lots of lovely little gift stores throughout Scotland like Penny Black, Cloud Berry, Stephen O’Neil, Cat's Miaou etc.
How do you make them?
I work in quite a few varied ways, either hand drawn work, collage or painting to start with but eventually I move the work onto the computer to finish the designs. There are only a few items that don’t get completed on the computer, with the most time-consuming and enjoyable to make being my hand-crafted Russian dolls. Sitting with my paints and a good podcast is the best way to spend a day.
What sets you apart from other makers?
My aim with Eat Haggis aim is to make people think of Scottish design in the way their think of Scandinavian design and to celebrate and be proud of all that Scotland has to offer. I try to do this with a sense of humour, bold colours and high-quality products and design. My focus is on supporting smaller indie makers, and where I need help to finish a product then I try to get this done as close to home as possible, working with smaller manufacturers throughout Glasgow and wider Scotland.
My background as an architect gives me quite a precise and focused way of working and I do tend to plan out all details ahead of schedule and have very detailed drawings of everything. That does make me quite slow sometimes.
What are your most popular products?
My most popular range this winter was my Scottish blessings and sayings collection. This new collection tries to capture a little bit of a spiritual/mythical Scotland, the land of our collective memories and tales. This land has rugged mountain peaks, crystal clear rivers, deep dark lochs and tall enwrapping forests. It’s an ancient place, still connected to the stars above and the rhythms of the land below, a place where magic may still happen.
Each image in the collection is an exaggeration of an existing place, with each having a key feature, a small stone bridge, a roaring comet, a stark white stag or a fresh soft fall of snow. At the head of each work is placed a classic Scottish phrase/ blessing.
These are the wise words of our ancestors (usually our grans) written as they spoke, echoing down through the ages and chiselled in stone forming the Scottish psyche with honesty and dark wit. They talk of joy and of peace, of fate, of enemies and of friends. They are written how people used to say them to me and it’s interesting to see how the saying have varied throughout the country.
The collection includes phrases like:
“May ye for’er be happy an’ yer enemies know it”
“Where'er ye bide in the word sae wide we wish ye a neuk on the sunny side"
“May your joys be as deep as the snow in the glen and you sorrows as few as the teeth of a hen"
“May joy n peace surround you both, contentment latch yer door, may happiness be with ye noo n’ bless ye evermore”
“Here’s tae the heath’ the hill and the heather, the connet, the plaid he kilt and the feather.”
I’m always looking to expand the range so if anyone has any great Scottish sayings then please send them my way.
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