The Medwayish story: How did we get here?
Medwayish began as a side hustle, but became a side quest to celebrate people and place in the Medway Towns.
In which Steven Keevil catches everyone up on how a plan to reward crowdfunder supporters with cool stuff sparked great creative conversations, long days standing at markets and festivals, and grew into a wider passion project — working with local talent to celebrate the people and place that is Medway.
Medwayish began as a limited company that published Local Authority, a Medway hyperlocal news website founded by Ed Jennings in 2021, which I joined in 2022. Initially focused on covering politics and current affairs in Medway, I started writing about important topics like alleyways and the Chatham Pocket. In 2023 the website won Kent News Website of the Year at the KPBAs. We also launched a successful crowdfunding campaign to fund our coverage of the upcoming local elections.
As a keen supporter of crowdfunders, and a fan of good original rewards, I set about working with local creatives to design and produce an exciting array of original products to reward our supporters.
Things we’ve made with Medway creatives
Designed by Natalie Tyler, our warning sticker has proven popular and has been seen adorning many items.
Vote Lonely Hearts was a Doodles by Ben (now Higglebees) design created for us back in 2015 for an earlier project, The Political Medway. Ben Cameron kindly let us turn it into a postcard.
I first came across Nick Ashton thanks to Nat’s Medway Local website, and was keen to work with him on developing something original — and frankly, cool. We fully leaned into the Waghorn dynamic, in a very Nick Ashton way.
We were aware of Esther Johnson before she became a national branding megastar, and were keen to work with her. She not only designed us a subtle and elegant tote bag, but also knew the right people to ensure it was produced to a high standard.
We were also very happy to support her Medway Activity Book project, which is highly recommended if you haven’t seen it.
Designer Mark Barnes is a Medway mainstay, and I was keen to work with him, when having a mug seemed like a good idea. We discussed what could we do that wasn’t Waghorn, and when that idea failed, we talked about what could we do that wasn’t just Waghorn.
Anybody that has met Nick Ashton knows that he is a whirlwind of ideas and creativity, and when working with a force of nature, it’s best to go with it. Applying our thought process of popular culture meets Medway, a zombie’s attack project was only natural…
A website, markets, crowdfunding, and more
Even at a niche level, we soon realised it made financial sense to produce extra items that we could sell at a later stage, so we launched the Medwayish website and entered into wholesale agreements with Hazelnut Press, Jonathan Ash, and Wordsmithery to sell their existing works on our Medwayish stall, which could now be found, along with a popular new range of postcards, at farmers’ markets and Medway events.
Embracing my role as the sort of middle-aged man that obsessively researches his local area (know your tribe), I began writing more niche Local Authority articles, pitching completely not crazy ideas to local creatives, and finding existing Medway items that would add to the growing range. This is how we came to be selling books.
Finding out there was a title, literally called Medway: A Novel, seemed a perfect fit. Even if the author had inconveniently moved to Australia. There was also Stephen Morris’ Do it Yourself: A History of Medway Music, published by Cultured Llama (which had since closed down). It was like turning up to a house party, after the party had ended and everybody had gone home.
Last year we cut back on the stalls, focusing on web sales and developing projects that would support Medway creatives. Our initial idea for a Medwayish Substack — a creative newsletter — didn’t have the readership to match the quality of submissions, so we instead ran a short creative series over on Local Authority.
We also tested the world of crowdfunding. Firstly we developed a project with Matilda Flood. Matilda had designed a high quality wallpaper, but even in my most romantic Medwayish moment, I couldn’t quite imagine somebody needing to wallpaper their home and coming to us for the paper. We quickly realised that wrapping paper would be a perfect fit.
At first, the Sangar circus didn’t feel quite Medway enough. That was until Matilda explained the story of the Lion Queen, and the link to Chatham, and it all came together. The Kickstarter was launched and was successful, and we look forward to launching the products on the website soon.
We also supported a new tea towel design from Hazelnut Press, based on the story of Strood legend Isaac Newell. Unintentionally, the initial successful design turned out to be NSFW. Heather Haythornthwaite agreed to update the design, to produce an additional safe for work version. The Futbol! Kickstarter campaign, celebrating Strood’s connection to football in Argentina, was also successful and we are in the process of developing those rewards as we speak.
What’s next for Medwayish?
The success of these products — and the conversations, collaborations, and experiments along the way — has shown us that people are keen to celebrate where they live and support the creatives in their community. It’s also made us realise that Medwayish deserves its own space and identity, and a few more resources to help it grow.
As part of that evolution, Medwayish is no longer part of Local Authority. That company has become Authority Media and has recently launched a Kent-focused news title, Kent Current.
This leaves Medwayish to focus on what it does best — working with Medway’s talented creatives to produce great products that celebrate where we live. In the next newsletter, we’ll share some exciting things we’ve got planned for re-launching Medwayish.
Medwayish works with local creatives to create great products that celebrate Medway. Subscribe to our newsletter and you’ll be first to hear about new product releases, Kickstarter campaigns, and other exciting news. Click here to subscribe.
You can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram, or visit Medwayish.com to see everything we’ve launched so far.
I hope you'll include my new book in your offerings. Published this month