Advocates of minimal, functional design, Crowd Collective add value to your everyday life with their beautiful accessories. Read on for our interview with these entrepreneurs and be sure to fill your stockings at our Sydney market this weekend.
How did you come to be a seller at Finders Keepers?
We launched our first product, the Orbitkey Key Organiser online in late 2013 via crowdfunding. As a design-driven brand, we love innovation and clever new things. As part of our journey, we had the privilege to meet many like-minded creative individuals who also create their own innovative products. It was then that we decided to form a collective of design lovers and creators, aiming to bring beautiful and practical products to the Australian market.
Talk us through a typical day in the life of Crowd Collective.
We are a team of 9, and we work from our studio in Glen Iris, Melbourne. Typical day in the life of Crowd Collective would be: designing new products, making and testing new prototypes, refining the brand identity and marketing it to public through beautiful visuals.
Some of our brands are bigger than others and each one takes up different portions of our time. We also have a couple of brands (MACO and Madera) who work from our office space. As a small company, everyday is different, there’s always new opportunities coming up and new challenges, and fires to be put out! That’s what keeps it exciting!
What would be one piece of advice you would give a first time seller at The Finders Keepers?
Always be helpful and don’t try and over-sell to anyone! All market visitors are really friendly people and they’re open to new ideas, products and innovations. What we usually do is to show them what we love about the products and provide a demonstration of how it works, and everything else will fall into place! It’s always helpful to have some sample products and displays for customers to play with, and don’t worry, they won’t run away with them!
Also, first impression matters! Try your best to build a stall with catchy displays, perhaps lots of colours and images. There are so many great products and brands at the market that your stand can easily be missed.
Tell us about your inspiration for creativity?
As designers, we are constantly looking for better way to do things. We would usually draw inspiration from observation of how users operate and interact with their surroundings.
We try to surround our workspace with great products and design that serve a purpose – which are both aesthetically beautiful and functional. It’s another way to keep us inspired.
We love what the guys at memobottle are doing. Their product is a good example of great design – beautiful yet functional.
What goals do you have for your business over the next five years?
We want to focus on functional and beautifully designed products. We think good design should not only be beautiful, it also needs to add value for its users! If we can introduce new products and keeping true to our values we would be happy! Over the next 5 years, we would like to introduce more accessories to the Australian market and maybe even open up a pop-up retail store somewhere!