Working with foreign manufacturers…over the Internet

Note: typing s l o w e r and in ALL CAPS does not help.

Rachel and I scoured the Internet for our manufactures. We have spent at ton of time on G Chat and emailing with dozens of people across the globe. (the World Wide Web is pretty amazing!) I’m not sure exactly how we settled on our handbag and horn manufacturers… As newbies to the manufacturing process, Rachel and I have been skeptical of everything.  I guess after several days conversing with our handbag and horn manufactures we felt comfortable moving forward with the design process and ultimately ordering our first samples. 

The design process initially has consisted of emailing pictures, sketches, and written descriptions of our designs to our manufactures, decoding their cryptic half English responses, and then corroboratively working toward the production of a sample to be mailed to us. Check out this email…haha!

We have finally found that Photoshop is the best tool for communication. Pictures with arrows, circles, and descriptions like “same”, “just like this”, and “NOT LIKE THIS” have helped curb misunderstandings due to language barriers.

My dad will politely remind me that I can always work on my patience. Well Dad, this has been a good exercise…

At Driftwood Designs we want to design and produce the best product possible. Our handbags are made of high quality cowhide and expertly assembled in Guangzhou, China. In the late 1600’s Guangzhou emerged as one of China’s most successful ports for international trade and has remained so today.

Our horns and hardware are polished and then assembled by artisans near Moradabad, India. Moradabad is famously known as “Brass City” because of its huge export of the metal.

We just received our 3^rd horn sample and the 3^rd iteration of our 2nd handbag sample!!  We’ve been glued to our iPhones the past week… Trackthis is an awesome app that sends push messages as your packages travels through various checkpoints on its journey to you…simply thrilling.  

The process of designing and redesigning sample after sample has not been easy and inexpensive (and we still have to make our full first production order!!!) but these handbags are going to be freakin’ awesome (Rachel has been getting TONS of complements when she wears the samples) and I can’t wait to share them with everyone…we can’t afford this otherwise… :)