On October 31st 2012, Kickstarter officially opened up to creators in the United Kingdom. Since then we’ve seen some incredible UK projects launch on the platform - Aardman Animations bringing back their much loved Morph; Stuart Semple’s blackest black paint (for use by anyone but Anish Kapoor); and Fleabag, the one-woman show by Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
The UK was the first country outside of the United States that Kickstarter opened in, and is still to this day our second biggest market.
We’ve compiled some information and resources from a selection of UK creators, including interviews and project examples, that we hope will be useful and inspiring to you as you prepare to launch your project.
In 2017 we took a look back at the first five years of Kickstarter being open in the UK.
One of the most powerful ways we support artists is by offering dedicated time and space to develop projects alongside fellow creators. We teamed up with gal-dem to host a workshop for women and nonbinary people of color.
Take a look at how the London-based theater company, Improbable, launched their first Kickstarter campaign. Spoiler: Jim Broadbent narrated their video!
British installation artist and filmmaker, Isaac Julien, spoke with our colleagues at The Creative Independent about the changing nature of creative work.
Granby Workshop is an architectural ceramics studio in England that grew out of a larger effort to revitalize Liverpool’s Granby neighborhood.
Tortoise’s mission is to change the news. They turned to Kickstarter in 2018 to bring their idea to life. Read about their unique crowdfunding recipe, which helped them raise £539,000 in 30 days.
English singer-songwriter, Little Boots, used Kickstarter to launch a 10th anniversary edition of her single, “Hands”.
We teamed up with Social Art Network (SAN) to mentor ten artists as they prepared to launch their social practice projects, and asked them what social practice means to them.
Visual artist, Lucy Sparrow, talks about her experience of running two successful Kickstarter campaigns for her immersive felt-art installations.
The Victoria & Albert Museum asked us to curate a selection of Kickstarter projects for their 2018 The Future Starts Here exhibition, and we’re proud that quite a few Kickstarter-funded designs are showcased at London’s Design Museum as part of their permanent collection too.
Bento Lab co-founder Bethan Wolfenden talks about how her project got started, what she learned, and how beta testers have used it for some surprising projects.
50 South Asian artists explore what it means to be a bystander with The Bystander Anthology, a collection of comic and graphic narratives.
Simon Goode and Ira Yonemura of the London Centre for Book Arts discuss why they decided to launch a Kickstarter campaign after years of being entirely self-funded.
How do you get into running if you find it boring? Adrian Hon used Kickstarter to create a mobile game that can help!
If you’re looking for some inspiration, take a look at the United Kingdom Explore page, we’ve also shared some more of our favorite UK projects below:
5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Thunderbirds are go! With the help of over 3000 backers, Stephen La Rivière was able to resurrect Thunderbirds, using original voice tracks and retro filmmaking techniques, to celebrate its 50th anniversary.
MOON is the first topographically accurate lunar globe, displaying the current lunar phases at any given time. The combination of the 3D terrain with a light source recreates the lunar features as we see them from Earth.
David Bowie's world debut of Ziggy Stardust was at Friars Aylesbury, and with help from Kickstarter backers the first statue of Bowie has been erected in Aylesbury Market Square to commemorate it.
Nia Gould’s Make 100 enamel pin project celebrates the work of female artists throughout history, with a feline twist. Her FeMEOW collection features Sarah LuCATS, Frida CATlo, and Georgia O’CAT, among many others.
Lucy Sparrow’s The Cornershop was an entire stitched fabric newsagents in Bethnal Green, selling everything from felt cans of beans, to felt chocolate bars, and even felt porn magazines.
Ready to take the plunge and start your project? Go ahead and begin building it now - we're excited to see your creative idea come to life!
Other recommend Help Center articles:
Online payments
Common Pledge Problems