Search This Blog

Wednesday 10 July 2013

The Road to Retail - Image is Key

Over the years we've tried to do as much as possible ourselves - mostly to keep costs down - including of course designing the packaging for all of our products.  It's been a steep learning curve and we've come a long way from where we started, and I'm proud of what we were able to produce, but playing with the big guns is a whole different game.  In an industry where image is (almost) everything we need to look the part, otherwise we won't even make it past the car park!

So, we decided to enlist professional help to get the lip balm packaging just right.  Back in May I found three companies that I liked the sound of via a combination of a convoluted chain of website links that I can barely remember that started at the Business Wales website, and a good old Google search.

After much deliberating, to-ing and fro-ing with non-disclosure agreements, school holidays and some serious procrastination I finally came to a decision about which design team to go with a couple of weeks  ago.


One company was rejected purely on price.  I liked their style and the people I met, and they had some experience of designing for the retail market, but the budget simply wouldn't stretch that far.  It was a close thing between the other two companies.  On the one hand Company A had a lot of experience in advertising and people with previous experience working in the retail industry for large brands, but in terms of their actual design work, limited experience with designing for a retail environment.  On the other hand Company B was almost the exact opposite.  So who to choose, the company with the insider knowledge or the company with more experience of designing for a retail market?  Add to that the fact that I'm a bit (over)sentimental and didn't want to disappoint anyone (totally wet I know) and the decision was that much harder.

In the end it was hubby's cool head that helped me to decide.  As he hadn't been to any of the meetings all he had to go on was what I had told him and the portfolios of the two companies.  On that basis Company B won.  We liked their portfolio more and felt that we'd be more likely to end up with something we liked if we went with them.  Besides, Company A is still willing to divulge some of their insider knowledge despite not being the final choice (for a fee of course) so in a way it could be the best of both worlds.

So that's where I am right now.  I've given the design team the brief and sent them off to work some magic.  In the meantime I'm carrying on with other things, or trying to anyway, but I'll leave that for another post.  Have you had any experiences with design companies?  How did they turn out?  Please share your experiences in the comments.

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
domain names