Hear from founder and CEO Helen Edwards on how East End Prints started and how the company has evolved since things began back in 2010.
Why East End Prints Exists: Our Company's Origins And Purpose
East End Prints exists to make great art part of real life, not locked behind gallery walls, price points, or insider knowledge.
I didn’t grow up around galleries. I grew up in working class Essex in the 1980s, where at sixteen your options were fairly clear: hairdresser, the army, or, if you were lucky, something creative. My parents spotted a glimpse of something in me and sent me to study a BTEC at Colchester Institute. That decision changed everything.
A course trip to Paris blew my mind. I had never stepped foot in a gallery, let alone the Louvre. Visiting lecturers like Abram Games arrived with sketchbooks bursting with ideas; war posters, visual storytelling, purpose driven design. The impact was enormous. By eighteen, I knew art wasn’t just something I liked — it was something I wanted to build my life around.
Education grants made an art degree possible. I loved student life so much I stayed on, ran the student union as president (elected on the promise of 99p beer), became a bar licensee, and learned quickly that culture, community, and creativity are built through people, not polish.
That belief still sits at the heart of East End Prints.
Learning the Hard Way: Craft, Curiosity And Resilience
My twenties were not linear, but they were formative.
I moved cities, worked bars, applied for odd jobs, said yes to unlikely opportunities. I became a cruise ship photographer circling Cuba for three years, working sixteen hour days photographing American passengers, developing film overnight, printing and selling images back to them the day after. I ran away to Mexico with a diver. I came home. I moved to London with a determination to make art my living.
Every job I did; receptionist, bar staff, paparazzi photographer, keywording images for photo libraries, I gave everything to. I didn’t know it then, but I was learning how images move through the world: how they’re made, sold, licensed, reproduced, and valued.
That knowledge would later become foundational.
The Art Group Years: Artists, Rights And Scale
In 2000, I landed my first proper role as a Rights Assistant at The Art Group Ltd, one of the UK’s largest poster publishers at the time.
It was a baptism of fire in the art business. I learned how to contract artists properly. I travelled the world visiting studios and galleries. I negotiated licensing deals, including with Jean Michel Basquiat’s father, and saw firsthand how artists’ work could reach millions of homes when handled with care and respect.
This was the era of huge lithographic print runs; 3,000 at a time with artists like Jack Vettriano and John Miller selling in their millions. Through accounts like Habitat, I was able to explore more experimental, esoteric aesthetics alongside commercial bestsellers.
I also saw the cracks. Artists lacked high quality digital files of their own work. The internet was growing fast, but infrastructure hadn’t caught up. Digital printing in smaller runs, with better quality and less waste — was emerging, but too slowly.
The Art Group didn’t survive the shift. I left after eight years with redundancy, and a very clear sense of what I wanted to do differently.
The Conception of East End Prints: Artists First, Built From The Ground Up.
I briefly became an art educator, teaching darkroom photography in a South London girls’ school. Then I got pregnant and everything sharpened.
Alongside teaching, I was running exhibitions and art markets in the East End with friends: illustrators, painters, printmakers selling limited editions. The talent was extraordinary, but the business models weren’t working.
So I built one.
East End Prints began as East End Arts Club - a one woman operation run with a breastfeeding baby, no sleep, and £500 in the bank. I uploaded products at night, wrote copy, paid artists, raised invoices, packed orders, sold at market stalls, and emailed relentlessly.
I wrote to Habitat for three years before they replied. When they did, they wanted a range of prints. Then Urban Outfitters came. I crowdfunded for an apprentice. Momentum built.
We outgrew the name and rebranded as East End Prints, with the help of dear friend and award winning designer Martin Lewis, who created our iconic red dot logo and rebuilt the website. Suddenly we were paying tax. We had fifty artists. It was real.
As my son started nursery, we took our first office. Then a pop up space. Then major events: Finding Fridas (over 70 Frida Kahlo reinterpretations), The One Ton Show at Shoreditch Town Hall; 100 artists, £100 each, queues around the block.
We tested relentlessly with paper products, publishing models, exhibitions, and always with artists at the centre.
Building For A Successful Tomorrow: Art For Real Life.
Brick Lane came next, our permanent home. It felt right immediately. The history, the energy, the independence, it embodied why East End Prints exists.
I invested in mentoring, learned how to build teams, systems, and processes, and quietly wrote a letter to myself with my first official turnover goal.
Then lockdown hit.
A competitor shut their factory. John Lewis needed poster art. It took over a year to launch, but when we did, everything changed. Today we regularly update home décor ranges for John Lewis, Dunelm, NEXT, and supply around 500 independent UK retailers alongside interior and hospitality clients.
Fast forward to today and we now have:
- A creative community with ~200 artists.
- Curated collections with 1,000 greeting cards and 3,000 prints.
- Thousands of delighted customers worldwide.
- Museum quality framed art printed on demand.
- An infrastructure which fully supports UK manufacturing.
- No excess stock.
- A team adapting quickly to trends without compromising quality.
Our core product remains the same: beautiful, high quality art made accessible.
Our Values: Guiding Every Decision
Artists First
Artists are creative partners, not content suppliers. Fair contracts, royalties, visibility, and long term relationships sit at the heart of everything we do.
Community
We are deeply rooted in the East End — in independent shops, trade fairs, studios, and shared culture. We show up, support, and stay connected.
Craft & Quality
From paper choice to framing to print accuracy, quality is non negotiable — whether we’re producing one print or thousands.
Sustainability
Everything is printed on demand in the UK. No warehousing, no excess stock, less waste — and more freedom to take creative risks.
Accessibility
Galleries can be intimidating. Art shouldn’t be. We exist to bring exceptional work into people’s homes — to live with, enjoy, and cherish.
Looking Forward
East End Prints has grown, but the values are unchanged and they’re still my own. Building a leadership team has been the most important step forward. The challenges are real, especially with physical retail — but I still love what I do. Every day is different. Every artist matters.
We’re here to build a long term cultural business; one that supports artists, serves customers, and keeps great art part of everyday life.
