It’s been quite the journey… and although we have had many and what often feels like never ending challenges it has been incredibly rewarding. We started the brand with the goal to become net exporters of Australian design and we are on our way to achieving that. We’re almost surprised the international market has taken off for us the way it has, especially the last couple of years. In the past few years we have exhibited in Milan and supplied international brand offices for Google, Nike, Netflix, Facebook, Dropbox with Australian designed furniture. I think it helps that are so killer at the moment. This is helping to create an Australian design identity that we need to harness as a design community. This has followed through into the Australian furniture scene with lots of people doing great stuff. It’s awesome to see. We have built an amazing team to help us achieve this and DesignByThem currently represents with quite a few more to come. We have definitely committed ourselves to Australian design whilst also producing (hopefully!) what people consider to be good and distinctive work.
DesignByThem’s latest launch is the August Lounge Collection by GibsonKarlo. Do you feel your youth, ignorance and naivety plaid a part in reaching towards your goal? Sometimes people feel they need to know every step for achieving a goal before they take it, however, sometimes not knowing or making mistakes along the way seems to be the best way forward. What are your thoughts on this? We are mindful of sounding like we have made it. We really haven’t and we have so much more to go! We have an ongoing joke in the office that our mantra should be “always learning”. Our youth, ignorance and naivety definitely played a huge part in us actually starting this brand and continuing on with it. What we lacked in experience and knowledge we made up for in energy, risk taking and sheer determination. We knew it was going to be a hard road (maybe we underestimated this a tad) and it would require some personal sacrifices, luck and good decisions but we definitely made errors along the way and looking back we just kept rolling with the punches and tried to learn from them. You can never know everything before you start and you can try to prepare as much as you can but inevitably some things will not go to plan and so you need to be adaptable and resilient. As Mike Tyson said “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
Fenster indoor/ outdoor seating collection by GibsonKarlo.How has your practice evolved over the last 13 years, and how have you responded to the growth and changes in the design industry, advancements in technology, digital media etc? The practice has evolved quite a lot over the past 6 to 7 years, especially. The first five years we were finding our feet and developing one or two small products a year. We did quite a bit of Industrial Design consulting for other companies to support the business which was great but it also distracted us from furniture development. The design consulting was a safe, regular income for us so we knew that if we did not cut it then we would not focus on what we really wanted to be doing. So we decided one day to cut it and just like that, we willingly removed this as a way for us to make money… this made us focus. We are definitely laser focused today in comparison to the early days and have really embraced technology. We love a good app and we’re data nerds! We are very systems oriented with a large emphasis on website development, automation and tools that make it easy for the client. We noticed when we first started that no one showed pricing online – crazy, right?! We also knew that to be a globally competitive brand that we would need to embrace Australian and International manufacturing. Our priority is the success of the product and to get royalties to our Australian designers. Our team is always looking for ways to improve every single part of our brand, processes and business. Creating an environment to allow them to then implement these has been a big part of why we can compete against much larger brands.
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发表于 2020-9-9 02:45:11
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