Two successful entrepreneurs from Camden have vowed to bring holiday and family snaps “back to the mantelpiece” after setting up an innovative Instagram framing business.
Jake Hayman, 32, and Joe Kenyon, 28, both former pupils of William Ellis School in Highgate Road, hope their business will overturn “the loss of permanence” in photography following the rise of smartphones and digital cameras.
More photos are expected to be taken this year than during the whole of history combined, but despite this, keeping framed snaps has all but disappeared for many young people.
The pair’s latest venture – Frame Again – aims to combine old and new by allowing customers to upload, print and frame their favourite Instagram snaps directly from their mobile, with customised frames delivered to their door.
And with a sizeable potential market, it’s an enterprise that has attracted the support of many prominent investors.
“We got the idea after a wedding in Iceland and wanting to frame photos taken on our mobiles,” said Mr Kenyon.
“Smartphones and many camera apps like Instagram take Polaroid-style square pictures but there aren’t any frames out there to match.
“So we conducted some market research and found a sizeable chunk of the population yearning for the same service.
“People say printed photography is dead but it’s just not been upgraded for the new generation. People are realising their phone screens aren’t frames and Facebook isn’t the same as a photo album.
“People miss having their favourite photos framed on their desk at work or on their mantelpiece at home. Our business hopes to bring that back.”
Opening their first pop-up shop in Chalk Farm Road this week, the company will launch with an on-street as well as online presence – and the duo are no strangers to success.
In 2008, they launched Future First – an organisation promoting support networks for former students in UK state schools and which is now present in one in five schools up and down the country.
“Opening a shop here combines the modern tech of an e-commerce business with the old-school enterprise of a market stall, and that’s what Frame Again does,” added Mr Hayman, of Highgate West Hill.
“We bring the new technology in photography together with the tradition of printing and framing.
The Frame Again pop-up shop is in the Market Hall, Chalk Farm Road, and will be open until Sunday.
For more information, visit frameagain.com
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