#10: Knowing when your design is truly done: The finishing touches!
How do you know when your creative piece is truly complete?
In this episode of The Thriving Maker I discuss my insights and experiences behind the finishing stages of the production process. How as a maker you need to instinctively assess your designs and ensure they embody the story you first envisioned. I discuss the importance of listening to your intuition and heart, reflecting back on your original inspiration, and making sure that every detail aligns with your creative vision. Whether you prefer to show your handmade maker's marks or achieve a flawless finish, I'll share my thoughts on taking your time at this final stage and savouring the moment your piece is complete.
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Transcript:
Sarah: 0:00
Hello, welcome to the Thriving Maker podcast.
Sarah: 0:03
In today's episode, I'm talking all about the finishing stages of your production, of making your work and bringing your designs to life. So it's a continuation of the last episode and I'll be talking all about how you know when the right time to finish is and assessing your work to ensure that it's telling the story of the original design that you're making. So, wherever and however you're listening, I hope you enjoy. Hello and welcome to the Thriving Maker podcast. This is a podcast to support makers, crafters and artists to start and grow their creative passions into thriving, profitable businesses. I'm Sarah Kavanagh, your host, and I'm passionate about all things creative and how to turn your unique talents into a thriving business, giving you the lifestyle that you want. I started my own handmade fine jewellery business over 15 years ago and now also help other artisans and makers build their own creative businesses through marketing and branding and techniques and strategies I've studied, learned and put into practice along my journey. Today, I want to help you to establish and grow your own design-led business so that it can help support the lifestyle that you want. Think of this as your go-to resource and check in for all things strategy and marketing for your business, along with stories and anecdotes from my life as a creative entrepreneur. Thank you for tuning in and welcome to the Thriving Maker podcast.
Sarah: 1:34
Hello, in today's episode of the Thriving Maker, I want to talk all about production and finishing your designs. Now it's a bit of a continuation from the last episode, which was talking about the production and making your work, bringing it to life. In this episode it's kind of a continuation of that, but more about knowing when to finish and knowing when enough is enough and that you've reached the the end of your design. So it may be really obvious when your work is finished, when your design is how you want it to be and it's come to life and you finish making it and you know that that's it, that it's ready. But other times it might not be so obvious, especially if when you're making a piece, it's evolving. The design is evolving. It may not be. You may have an initial design and you follow it loosely, but the actual piece as it comes to life may change slightly and in these situations it can be harder to know when you finished and when you've completed your work.
Sarah: 2:47
I tend to work a little bit like this as well. My work tends to evolve as I'm making. It does come up a point when I know, okay, this will be the final mark that I'm going to be making, but quite often, often, it is evolving as I'm working through a piece, but you will feel in your gut you will know when it's ready and and when you're happy with that work. So if you work in this way, if your work does evolve and grow as you're making it and you maybe don't have a specific design, but you have an idea that you're creating with your work, then really listen to your gut, go back to your thoughts about the initial design. What was the story behind the piece that you're making? What inspired you to make it? When does it feel that it's complete to you? And you will feel that you'll know in your heart Quite often less is more.
Sarah: 3:52
We hear the phrase less is more, and that is true for design work as well Not for, not for everybody. So really take the final stages of your design slowly and just go back to how you initially wanted your design to be. What was the initial initial feeling and the initial story? And really feel it in your gut and your heart about whether the piece is finished to your standards and how you want it to be, sometimes your design, as it comes to the end of the making, the production process. Sometimes it might be very different from how you originally envisaged it, and this can be okay if you're, if it tells the story that you wanted it to tell, if it speaks to you the way you wanted it to feel, then that's okay. It doesn't have to be exactly like your original design. If it makes you feel the way you wanted to feel when you first conceived the idea and you first started designing and thinking about this particular piece.
Sarah: 5:01
Your style may be to leave your maker's marks in a piece, to leave those imprints that speak to it being made by hand, or it may be that your work, your style, is to have a very clean and crisp finish. So whichever style you are going with, whichever finish is your is in your style. You need to make sure, as you come to the end, that you are translating that and you are showing that to in your work. The finishing can take just as long as the actual overall making of the piece. It may be that your piece needs to be polished or cleaned or finessed slightly, thinned out, framed. There's all sorts of different finishings in all the different disciplines, and your final job, as you're making your piece of work, as you're making your design, is to make sure that the finishing is as best as it can be, as refined as you want it to be, whether that is leaving your marks as the maker or whether it is making it a crisp and clean finish. That's entirely up to whatever style that you want your work to portray. But don't rush the finishing. Don't think, oh, I've made it, it's good to go the finish. Take your time, enjoy the work that you've done and the time that you've put into it. You've put a lot of love and care and thought into the design, the story behind it, the the feelings that you went through when you first conceived these ideas and this design. And so don't rush the end, don't rush this finish process. Linger on this final step. Make sure that the finish is as you want it to be and it really tells the story that you want it to to tell and that you set out to to tell with.
Sarah: 6:57
With this piece of work, I recently um made a bespoke piece for a client and the story was so important it was. It was um. I'll briefly tell you kind of the outline of the story, but it was a necklace, a piece of jewelry that spoke of their fertility journey and the journey to them having their their first child, and so it was so important to make sure that the elements that we talked about when we we initially, when I initially met with the client and we discussed the piece, that this feeling and emotion was carrying through in the in the piece of work and that the gemstones used were they had such significance in in their story that it had to be just right. And I really felt that emotion and importance when I was making the piece and designing the piece. And I really felt that emotion and importance when I was making the piece and designing the piece and I really wanted it to follow through and to show that in the end piece to make sure that it was really communicating all that emotion and all that importance that it held for for my client. So really, what I'm saying is take time to step back and look at your piece of work and assess if it's telling the story that you want it to tell. Is it translating those feelings and those emotions that you first had when you designed the piece?
Sarah: 8:36
And you also want to make sure that you're carrying out kind of a quality check on the piece as well. Will it withstand 100 years of use? If it's something that is going to be an heirloloom piece of work, that something's going to be passed on or shown or held or worn, is it going to stand this test of time? Have you, does it have those that quality that you want to have it to have in your piece? If it's something that doesn't need to stand the test of time because it's a consumable piece something like a candle or a beauty product or something some handmade consumable then it may be that the finessing is all in that final presentation, in that final packaging, and this is part of the finishing as well. You may have your packaging and I will talk more about packaging and presentation in another episode but it needs to be considered in the overall use of your work, in this overall quality checking. You want to make sure that it's going to last. If it's going to be worn, will it withstand that wear over time? Is it going to need special care taken by the owner? Can buy the owner? If so, make sure that in your systems, in your um, in your workflow, that you have details or care instructions for the owner of the piece when they come to, when you come to sell it. So these are all things to consider.
Sarah: 10:20
As a handmade maker, I think we do follow our guts and our hearts and our intuition very closely when we're making a piece, and this is this is a gift and this is something that we are lucky to be able to do and to enjoy this process of really feeling your work and understanding how it's come together and the story behind it. Sometimes it's easier to talk about the story than to just type it out. So, as you're finishing your piece, now's a good time to also reiterate that story and retell that story of the piece of work, of the design, what's inspired you. Coming back to it at a later date is obviously just as good to do, but once you're still in the moment, once you're feeling everything about this work and the work that you've put into it, now is a good time to just record it and just do a voice memo on your phone or write a few notes down, because this will serve you well later on when you're coming to market your piece of work as well. Market your piece of work as well.
Sarah: 11:31
The final step in finishing the production of your piece is making sure that it's ready for marketing, ready to be photographed and marketed to sell. So this could just be kind of cleaning it up, making sure the polish is finished, cleaning any bits and bobs off it, the framing, all of that side of thing, whatever it is that's going to be, make it ready to be photographed. Make sure that that is done at this stage as well, because then, when you set time aside for photographing your work, you know that you have the piece ready to go ready to to take those images, and I will talk more about photographing and that initial getting ready to market your work in the next episode. So that's it for this episode. I hope it's been useful and I hope it's given you some thoughts about what it means to finish your work and knowing when to stop and knowing that your work is telling a story. Your designs that you've brought to life tell the story which is going to be passed on to the owner, to the person that ultimately buys your work, and so it's really important to be able to finish it in a way that you are satisfied with and that, in your gut and your heart, you know is is is good and is finished. So that's it for today.
Sarah: 12:46
As I said, in the next episode we'll be looking more about the business side of having a handmade business and, in particular, photographing your work ready to market. If you are interested in the business side of having a handmade business, I also want to invite you to join the waitlist for the handmade business academy. This is a program that I run about three times a year, so if you want to join the waitlist and learn more about the business side of having a handmade business maximizing sales, getting consistent sales for your work then go into the show notes and you'll see a link to to join the waitlist there. But that's it for today. Take care, and I'll speak to you soon.