Product Design Defined with Diana Ingles
We are at the end of the Product Design series. I have learned a LOT and now know a lot about all different facets of the industry. I also know there are many different definitions of product designer.
But most can be broken down into two categories. One type is a person who works digitally and designs interfaces and customer journeys for a digital product like an app or website. The other type of product designer is someone who creates physical products and sells either direct to customer or sells wholesale.
This week we are finishing up this series and talking about someone who has gone from creating many products and selling them online direct to customer and locally but mostly retail. Diana (De) & John Ingles have completely changed their model and are now focusing on wholesale in a niche market.
I can’t wait to pick De’s brain this week and ask her about all they have learned.
Oh and two more episodes launch this week. One Wednesday, and one Friday! Definitely will be catching up quick and before the end of the year.
I hope you will join me this Wednesday, December 4 at 7:30pm GMT / 2:30pm ET / 11:30am PT / 9:30am in Hawaii. Sign up here to get the link delivered to your inbox. https://creativesignite.com/signup
Listen here
Questions
De, can you give everybody a little background about how this business of selling products started?
Before hiring a consultant, how would you determine what products you would make? How would you decide what designs went on which products?
Where do you sell your work now as opposed to when you first got started? How do you share your work? How do people find you normally? How do you connect with your customers when you aren’t at a trade show?
Why is it more lucrative to go to trade shows and sell wholesale rather than selling online or locally at farmer’s markets and wholesale to stores locally?
How many trade shows do you go to per year? How many are there?
You have a clear focus and niche. Can you tell us about that and why it is important to you?
Can you tell us about the sustainable aspect of your business and how algae ink and miram are used in your products and why?
You have used miram in ways other people hadn’t, this is definitely a trait of a product designer. What have you done and how have you found new materials to work with?
De, how much time per month do you and John create new art?
How often are you adding a new type of product? Like t-shirt, coloring book, poster, hat, sticker? How often are you doing new designs for shirts or coloring books, etc?
How do you decide what art to create into new products? Or do you create the art and then see how it performs and then make it into a product?
What has been your favorite product you have created so far?
Regarding mindset, what do you think has worked against you in how you were raised?
It is hard to start a business and especially hard if you have physical products. Many people have investors or take out loans y’all decided to fully self-fund this, why?
What have been a few things you have learned that you wish you knew at the beginning, that maybe if you had known them they wouldn’t have been such expensive lessons?
This entrepreneurial journey is a long game. How do you avoid being in the valley of depair?
What one thing has been the biggest game changer in this venture?
What’s next for you?
Connect with Diana (De)
Wild Routed: https://wildrouted.com
Rootlebox: https://rootlebox.com
Transcript
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