Interview with print queen Kate Fenning of Yorkelee

Prints make artwork accessible for all budgets, AND they’re so much fun! As someone who gets buyer’s ‘freak out’ after dropping my hard-earned coin on expensive items, prints are my best friend! And if you’re print-obsessed like me, I have a treat in store for you.

We have an exclusive interview with Kate Fenning – the founder of Yorkelee Prints, a.k.a the store dominating the print space here in Australia! With 50k followers on Instagram alone, Kate Fenning sure knows what prints are in! And her prints are super reasonable – I’m talking $7 up people!

Take a read of the story behind this successful Australian business and Kate’s tips for introducing prints into your home. And, Kate has generously given us a discount code for 20% off her entire store! Simply enter VIP20 at checkout!

I started Yorkelee after having Yorke (my first son). I had worked in the advertising industry for over 15 years and wanted a break. I didn’t want to go back full time and just loved spending time with Yorke at home and was really after work life balance. I started contracting to clients from home in design and marketing services and was doing some art and design for styling around my own home. I couldn’t find many affordable prints around that worked in with my vision for our house and my boys’ rooms so I decided to design my own. Friends and family went nuts asking for some for their places so eventually I designed and developed the website to make it easier for everyone to select the designs they wanted. Before I knew it, I had an overwhelming amount of orders; I was on Instagram and Facebook; and had people wanting to interview me on blogs about interior styling! It was a total dream to be able to start designing and create art that others liked and wanted, it really all started out from my need to fill a gap.

I decided prints because I wanted it to be affordable and easily changeable for customers. I think prints are such a great way to change the shape of a space in seconds. I’m all about affordable design so I wanted everyone to be able to afford our prints. I really believe that everyone should have the opportunity to have a beautiful, stylish home they dream of, so this was my way of helping people achieve that.

My fave prints, oh there are so many, most of our prints were initially designed for spaces in our house so they really do mean a lot to me. It’s so hard to choose! Rose premium – which is one of our new prints from the premium collection – is a new fave of mine. Dreamer, one of our home prints was created by using ink and my handwriting. I remember doing it on our kitchen bench and thinking “I love this”! I’m also really into our abstract range. Expressions is such a diverse, trendy piece of art, I also love Stunner, she is just beautiful.

1. Work out what style you want to go for in each room/space before choosing art prints. Once you work out the style, choosing the prints is easy! For example if you want minimalist, monochrome, you would choose something like the Dreamer print or one of the custom letter prints in a large size like A2 or A1. If you want bold, artistic, creative look and feel you might select something like our Wild, Geo Pastel or Expressions prints.

2. Plan your wall out first before hanging, step back and look at your space, map out where everything is going to go before you start hammering, trust me… this is coming from someone with a million holes in all my walls : )

3. Measure out your space, even if you like to just wing it, it’s always better to mark where you want each print to hang and measure the frame and space to make sure it is going to look exactly how you imagined it. Often frames have hooks on the back that sit below the top of the frame, so you might think it will hang off the top, but it doesn’t and it can totally change the space if you hang the print too high or too low.

4. Get creative with your frames. You don’t have to go for the same style of frames that everyone else has. I have found so many amazing old frames at garage sales, second hand stores and even the reject and dollar shops, look everywhere, you might be surprised at what you find. Also look into different materials you can use. There are some great print hangers now made from wood, they clip onto your prints using magnets at the top and bottom and look amazing! You can also tape up prints with washi tape or even use frames without glass. Look on Pinterest for ideas and get creative!

5. Personally I like two kinds of styles in my rooms, the first being one BIG feature print, go large, on a nice big wall (don’t put a big feature print on a small wall, it makes the space look smaller). Make sure it’s the feature and placement is key when it’s a really big print. The second is a gallery wall, love them, lots of different size prints in frames (or without taped up) to create a visually interesting feature in any room.