It’s a bit surreal to be writing the blog that launches Handiwork from pet-project to public. We’ve had a full year of concepting, collecting and creating and finally get to share the story.
Handiwork started during a conversation in my annual review meeting with Dawn. I told her, if I was honest, I needed to step away from the screen and a routine of pushing pixels. I needed something different – to step outside of my “normal.”
We talked about conferences I could attend, projects I could oversee – all good things. But then the conversation switched. What if we started an experiment, where we had the creative freedom to develop, design and dream-up an idea, seeing it through from beginning to the end? What if it could be something, not just for ourselves, but one we could share?
Our simple conversation led to weekly brainstorming sessions. We’d gather around, exhausting sticky note pads and notebook pages. We dreamed big (start a non-profit) and small (make miniature things). And the more we talked, the more we kept returning to common themes and they were very obvious – like smacking us in the face obvious. (Sidenote: Shout out to Project H, an inspiration to me in both dreaming and designing.)
We noticed each of our dreams revolved around five core-values we shared as a team:
- Craft/Creativity
- Meaningful Relationships
- Food
- New Experiences/Travel
- Giving Back
With these common values in mind, we started brainstorming how we could flesh out each of these ideals. We created a matrix of ideas and constructed + deconstructed until it all made sense. What if through the right tools, carefully crafted into a kit, we could provoke an entire experience? We believed it was possible. We named our quest Handiwork.
Handiwork’s first project would be to take “Craft/Creativity” as our inspiration and design a back-to-the-basics adventure. So we made.
We sketched. We stenciled. We screenprinted.
We gathered old tools and new techniques.
And now it’s time to share. We’re confident you’ll transform our simple tools into something even bigger. We’re not claiming we’ve found the solution, rather the first movement of a collaborative opus.
Come join the journey.
