Thursday, August 25, 2011 ? Leave a Comment?
Jean and Dylan from Ladies & Gentlemen Studio are friends, plus friends of friends. Funny how that works, right? I don?t see nearly enough of them but thankfully they agreed to be interviewed for this series. Read on to see how their business formed and took off (with a little help of those friends of friends).The Start
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It all begin with a yearning to be creative on our terms, but it was jumpstarted by the emergence of an independent design scene in Seattle.? We were both working professionally as product designers, but had all these ideas dancing around in our heads for things we wanted to make for ourselves.? When our friend Jamie from Iacoli & McAllister invited us to participate in a show of emerging designers in Seattle (unheard of at that point) in 2008 it was the catalyst we needed to get off our butts and actually make some ideas real.? We made our first Mega-Doily rug and Alpha Brass series over late nights in our apartment. JOIN Design Seattle was born from that show as a group that promotes design in the Northwest.? It became this really effective engine for sharing ideas, resources, and press.? Encouraged by that, we formed Ladies & Gentlemen Studio as a side project and as we found it consuming more and more of our time, we realized it required our full-time attention.Production Challenges
We?re a very small business?.like 2 of us small, and?it certainly creates its share of constraints when the rest of??the business world isn?t set up for operations of our size.? One big reoccurring challenge is designing for high-quality low-volume production. Commercial manufacturing is set up for producing things in the hundreds of thousands. We?re producing in the hundreds, so some suppliers won?t give us the time of day when we approach them to have something made.? It?s rather frustrating, but it really pushes us to design things that are either within our capabilities or optimized for low-volume methods with local manufacturers.? We think the resulting products are more interesting because they?re not made like products from big box stores.? Design with a sense of resourcefulness, simplicity, and individual character really appeals to us and that doesn?t come without constraints forcing you to make something with limited resources.
Business Tips
Find ways to be creative everyday! When we get wrapped up in filling orders, sending invoices, packing & shipping ordering etc,? it?s really easy to get caught up in how boring and repetitive that part is. ?On top of that, it?s really easy to convince ourselves we don?t have time to be creative and stay stimulated.? We try to make it a habit to take on creative challenges or plan little inspirational field trips?every so often to break away from our usual work mode?it could be playing around with new materials, sketching at a park or cafe, visiting some industrial warehouses looking at random materials, spend half a day in Chinatown, or just rearranging & organizing your space, etc.
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Of course, we know it?s not realistic to take fields trips all the time as much as we would like to! We realize that even ?boring tasks? can be exciting for us.? It totally helps to think of those mundane tasks with a creative approach even when designing?geeked-out spreadsheets, effeciently wrap & pack orders, outlining?our projects and overall business, etc.?We have to be creative on how to stay creative.
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