Creative Designs from the Heart

As with all unique designs, it’s only a matter of time until another company or individual decides to copy your ideas, which unfortunately cannot be prevented. Very recently, I was at a trade fair and came face to face with personalised wooden gift designs on a stand that were the product of my thoughts and creativity and were being passed off as someones else’s efforts and hard work.

Shop Toy Boxes

At first you inevitably think ‘You cheeky €&£@$!’ and other names come to mind, but I very quickly realised there was something very important missing! Something very obvious to me anyway! There is no soul in the products at all! It’s funny once the shock settles you realised when something has obviously been copied and not created by the maker the lack of love and those inspirational feelings are not present in the product.

A lot of the time the quality is never as good, which is a satisfying feeling, but also the products, when copied, are done to compete with you. This means they’re created to be cheaper and inferior to shift volume instead of high quality, luxury items as originally intended.

Even something as simple as this…

Shop Salt Bowls

Our engraved salt & pepper pinch bowl, unique to us, I have now seen several times on the market, which is a shame, as it was something I created in the very early days of Make Me Something Special, but I have never seen one made better.

It really made me think… My approach to creating something is to do it better than anyone else, where as the world today seems to be, ‘copy it and make it cheaper!’ I have never seen efforts to try to be better than the works I produce or more expensive. Lots are made in the far east as a simple money-maker but never one I would consider really good quality or luxurious.

I have actually been exhibiting at a trade fair in London and one of my competitors has actually been exhibiting at the same show. Talk about an atmosphere! Again though, I believe in what myself and my team create and it was a great opportunity to see what people thought who visited both stands. The result was, as I hoped and expected, our desire to create the best quality work possible shone through. Amazingly we were told throughout the days of the show that our products were on another level and the orders flocked in. I think if anything it helped sales along, hilariously, on two occasions customer actually went back to our competitors stand to return the item they had just purchased in order to buy similar items from our stand instead.

It confirmed something in my mind, not everything in this world has to be cheap for people to spend money. There will always be those who appreciate quality and fine craftsmanship. True love for what you do and attention to detail has always worked for us as a company and it is noticeable in the product.