You may have noticed the new design to pop into the Bangle & Babe lineup! The Bubble Inspired Bangle & Babe Bracelet Keyring is the newest exclusive design in our range of Bracelet Keyrings and we are so excited that it is finally here! We truly hate to burst your bubble, but we think this might be our favorite design yet!
The process of designing a new Bangle & Babe Bracelet Keyring is more complicated than you might think! We are very proud to be able to say that we develop our products from the ground up, working closely with our manufacturers to produce products we can be proud of. Every Bangle & Babe Bracelet Keyring has our logo branded onto the design because we own every mold that is used to produce them! Even our clasps are designed exclusively for our brand and manufactured for us. We may be a small team, and this process of development, design, and manufacturing is expensive, but it allows us to have control over the quality and durability of our products and we take a lot of pride in that!
The Idea
We work collaboratively within our team to come up with our designs, paying attention to trends and customer requests. Our products have to be versatile, with designs that appeal to a wide range of customers. We think very hard about how color combinations can change the aesthetic of our products -- marbled sea green with a gold clasp makes a mermaid gift for a preteen, or black with a black clasp becomes sleek and modern -- and how that translates to the design.
We work with flexible silicone, so we have to be familiar with how that medium works and whether designs are possible. The team creates a very crude mock-up (we’re not graphic designers) that does its best to translate the look we are going for, and that gets sent to our designer who can turn it into an incredible 3D model that will be sent on to our manufacturers for mold production. This entire process involves a lot of back and forth tweaking of the design until we come up with something that will work well with the flexible silicone!
The Manufacturing Process
Our manufacturer takes a look at our design and can give invaluable feedback about how the mold will work and we make any necessary changes. Once we think we have it as perfect as possible, a mold is made and the first samples can be produced!
Once samples are made, everything gets very exciting! We start thinking about what colors to produce the product in, and how many we need to be made. When manufacturing like this, minimums are large and we have to be very strategic in planning out color runs and initial orders.
Once production is given the green light, the waiting game begins! Our office is full of nervous anticipation at this point because we can’t wait to get the new product in our hands! It can take anywhere from one to three months for us to receive the order. And once it arrives, it’s a celebration!
A New Design
Once we have the product in hand, the fun begins. We start playing with color and clasp combinations, trying to predict which will be customer favorites. Photographs are taken and we load everything onto the website, working with our web developer to create seamless combination transitions so you can see exactly what a color and clasp combo will look like. Each variation has to be loaded onto our retail and wholesale sales channels, and catalogs have to be updated. It’s a full process and a lot of work, but so worth it to see the new design in action!
We take so much pride in our work at Bangle & Babe and a new, exclusive design is always a time of excitement for us! We hope that some of the excitement is passed on to our customers and retail partners as we continue to bring new designs to our lineup!
