April 2009 Entries

Today I received 30 new retro frames. I designed them a few weeks back when I was at the workshop and I definitely had my retro head on. Since January we have launched five new models per month and this month I have the job of selecting five retro frames from this lot. I’m not sure I’m up to the task, I want all of them. Hmmm, perhaps I should start an online voting so you can all help me out..
Our markets are so diverse (not just globally, but opticians next door to each other!), that we need to widen the collection to broaden the appeal. I am in a fantastic position. Every day Opticians from around the world are re-designing their Tom Davies frames for their customers. Also because we have our own workshop, we are able to create small production runs for our main collection.
The only problem now is... which frames to choose...


Two weeks ago we exhibited at Optrafair in Birmingham (sorry for the delay in the blog). Actually, we didn’t take a stand ourselves. We were guests of Zeiss. The most common question during the show was “What is the connection with Zeiss?” The answer was honest and simple: “My customers recognise the Zeiss brand as a quality product and it fits in well with our Bespoke business, especially with their Bespoke lenses.”.
 
Some chap from a magazine came by and took some fancy shots of me looking moody (I risked one of them on this blog) and overall the show was another surprise success. I’ve not really rated the Birmingham show but lots of our existing customers came by for training with Chintu and myself, top up orders and I also know we opened a few accounts we have been chasing for years!

Finally, I just can’t resist just one more baby photo, since I’m technically still on paternity leave (I suspect that everyone in eyewear has a photo or two like this!).

 

 



This blog is really only for business... but I just can't resist! New addition to the TD family, Amilia Florence Davies was born today (6th April) and everything is perfect (don't expect another blog update for a while, I'll be off work ...).

Alistair just got back from America where TD had its first trade show.  Whilst the show was a success (first small steps in a gigantic market) it was not without its problems.

I designed a giant banner to go along the back of the wall. Since this was our first show, we had but a small stand in the Gallery section but it was a shell scheme which typically look terrible. Our giant poster was designed when I was in the design studio in China last week and then shipped over directly to the show.

Unfortunately a volcano erupted and UPS couldn't fly the poster (that is the mother of all excuses) and so our stand looked .... well, you can see.

So using the miracles of modern technology, I've put this little visual together to have the memory of what it should have looked like and I'm happy to report that Alistair and Ashley had a good show for us. Nathan and Catherine both did a great job and helped launch TD to the American market place. I am gutted I couldn't be there (but I'm officially grounded due to imminent arrival to the Davies family) but it sounds like we did a fantastic job.

 

Oh, and the giant poster arrived at 6pm on the last day of the show

!