Learn

Guild members receive access to Nest Connect, an exclusive digital learning platform that houses a growing library of business development e-courses, toolkits, and templates for small businesses prepared by industry experts.

Photo credit: Marissa Baca

All of our programs and resources are free for Nest Guild members. If you are not yet a Guild member or you don’t know your member log-in details for Nest Connect, please email artisans@buildanest.org.

Sample Courses

Course Demo

Capture Craft: Elevating Your Product Photography

Developed by professional photographers, storytellers, and entrepreneurs, Gabriela Sapon (Gabriela Sapon Photography) and Yassir Mohamed (Yasyas Films), this course is designed to equip artisan businesses with tangible insights to elevate product photography and optimize images for various digital platforms.

Learning Objectives:

  • Styling, angle, and aesthetic tips for various product types

  • Managing a photograph library of product images

  • Strategies for best utilizing product images on websites and social media

Course Demo

Contracts & Confidentiality: Royalties, Sampling, & Agreements

Within this informative session, Attorney and Associate Director of Fashion Law Institute Jeff Trexler walks artisan and maker business leaders through the role of contracts and confidentiality and provides insight into important agreement frameworks such as design royalties and sampling for artisan & maker businesses.

Learning Objectives:

  • Components of a well-designed contract

  • Importance of wording in contracts 

  • Four-dimensional fashion contracts with terms being found in purchase orders, formal agreements, tech packs, and samples

Featured Instructors

Our instructors are experts in their field and lend that knowledge and industry experience to Nest Guild members by volunteering to lead courses, mentor, facilitate workshops, or provide consultation services with handcraft businesses in our Guild.

Mallory Solomon

Mallory is the CEO and Co-Founder of Salam Hello, a Moroccan-based rug company that works directly with local Amazigh women all over Morocco.

Tsui Yuen-Pappas

Tsui is a creative executive with over 25 years of experience working in the fashion industry. Her career started in design and had since expanded to include sustainable global sourcing and manufacturing, of designer ready-to- wear, footwear, and accessories.

Support

Nest Fellows are experts in their field and lend that knowledge and industry experience to Nest Guild members by volunteering to lead courses, mentor, facilitate workshops, or provide consultation services with handcraft businesses in our Guild.

Are you interested in teaching a course or leading a workshop for the Nest Guild?

Let us know →

Nest Artisan Guild

Artisan Voices Blog

A Perspective on Craft

Explore the histories, experiences, perspectives of your fellow Nest Guild members who share how they celebrate craft, community, and culture.

The Nest Guild is a community for makers committed to the responsible production of craft products either yourself or with artisans. If you are directly involved in the design and/or production of craft-based products, this community is for you.