My First Test Order Was (Partly) Successful!

I am super excited today because I just received my first test order for the coffee glasses that I developed over the last few months.

Of course I received samples before but as you might have guessed, the first run is never perfect.

Although I have to admit that I was really surprised that the manufacturer were capable of sticking so close to the initial design.

Nevertheless, there was some back and forth regarding the size, weight and printing. It is a good learning because it made me actually realize how long it can take to make such a simple product.

Learning Empathy

In our world today there are so many products coming to the market every day and many of them are just badly designed. Especially as a designer you tend to spot flaws in the details and complaining just feels like a natural and inevitable behaviour.

Yet, complaining is always the easy part if you don’t have to do it yourself. Once you start to develop your own products, you create empathy and learn to understand what it takes to make things real.

This is absolutely not an excuse for badly designed products but I see this realization as a necessary step in my personal growth to become a better designer.

Every time I am walking into a department store now I wonder what it took to make these products real that I have in front of me.

I challenge you to ask yourself the question what it would take for you to make the product real that you see next. How much time and how much money would it actually cost: from the first sketch to the first sale. Think about it!

Next Steps

I am confident that I can move on with the current quality of the glasses. The only thing that needs to be improved is the high failure rate of 16%.

5 Glasses were broken (my assumption is that double wall glass is more fragile) and 3 of them had minor flaws.

The ceramic on the other hand causes more headache for me right now because of the high precision that is needed.

But let’s see what 2017 brings.