Ever find yourself stuck staring at your materials, unsure of how to bring your design to life? In this episode of The Thriving Maker podcast, I share my tried-and-true strategies to help you transform your designs into tangible pieces. From  planning your production steps to overcoming the dreaded procrastination, and recording your process for the future. This episode arms you with some practical techniques and tips, that I use and swear by, to streamline your design production workflow. 

Tune in, get inspired, and let's bring your designs to life.

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➡ AUGUST DESIGN CHALLENGE

Transcript:

Sarah Kavanagh: 0:00

Hello, welcome to the Thriving Maker podcast. In this episode, I'm going to be talking all about the production stage of bringing one of your designs to life and making it and going through all the steps that you need to go through to bring your work together ready to sell to somebody. So, wherever you're listening 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. Hello, in today's episode of Thriving Maker, I want to talk all about production, and production of the pieces that you design and make. If you're listening at the start of August, when this is due to go out, then this is the second week in August is the second week of the August Design Challenge, and in this week it's all about production and getting started with making the designs that you've decided on in the first week of the challenge. So this episode of the podcast is all about production.

Sarah Kavanagh: 2:08

Now, as a jeweller, I have a certain way that I go about producing the pieces, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to talk through the processes and the steps that I take as a jeweller. Now all disciplines are going to be slightly different, but I hope that there'll be something in here that you will be able to take away and make use of in your own workspace, in your own discipline as well. So, without further ado, I will get cracking. So the first step I like to do in the production stage is really planning out the piece that I'm going to make. Stage is really planning out the piece that I'm going to make, and this is everything from planning the dimensions, planning what materials I'm going to need. So this is key to making sure that you have everything ready.

Sarah Kavanagh: 2:55

And it might be as you go through the production process that your design might change slightly, and that's absolutely fine, and that is especially when it's the first piece that you're making. That's completely normal as you realise that something's going to work slightly differently or in a better way. So I, although I plan out how something is going to a piece is going to come together, I'm not too rigid with it, especially if it's a bespoke piece or if it's the first of a particular kind, because I also design as I'm making as well, so my work evolves as I'm making a piece as well, so it might change slightly as it's being made. So that's the first step that I go through is really planning how it's going to come together, what steps I'm going to need, and to write down all the little steps. And sometimes the hardest bit is actually getting started actually cutting a piece of metal or deciding on what materials you're going to use for a piece. So getting started can be really difficult, and if you break down the process of production into lots of smaller chunks, it's so much easier to get started and to take that first step into making your piece.

Sarah Kavanagh: 4:13

Now, another way to get over the procrastination of getting started is as well as breaking the process down into lots of small chunks that you need to complete is to also set yourself a timer. I have a timing block on my workbench and to start with I might just set it for half an hour, just to get started and just that I can focus on one element for half an hour, and it does really help. Sometimes that half an hour goes really quickly and then I just continue because I'm in the flow then. But other times I do very little in that half an hour and I'll need to kind of add another half an hour and I'll have a break and come back to it. But if I set a timer, I know that I'm just concentrating on that one process, that one step, for those 30 minutes. So it is a really useful tool to use as well, and you can obviously set a timer on your phone or have a timing block which you can choose different amounts of time that you want to to use.

Sarah Kavanagh: 5:16

This also helps you to get into the right mindset for production and for making your piece. Getting into the right frame of mind, into the right mindset for making is crucial as a maker and it doesn't come necessarily easily and it's not always there when you're planning to be, to sit down and make. Allow yourself enough time, allow enough time to really get settled and get into the, the piece that you're you're wanting to make, into the production stage. And again, this is why I like to break the production down into lots of small steps, because I don't necessarily have a whole day in one, go to work on something for several hours and also my concentration isn't great for several hours at a time. I can do maybe an hour at a time and then I find that maybe mistakes start creeping in, so I can't work consistently for a long period of time. But I also can't start working right from the get-go. So you need to allow yourself time to settle into being creative, settle into that production phase, give yourself time to sit down, get the pieces around you that you're going to need, get into the right frame of mind, ready to start working. So what I would say with the production side is to give yourself plenty of time. It always takes me so much longer than I think it's going to take to get a piece together.

Sarah Kavanagh: 6:56

Sometimes it can also help to work to music or to work to a playlist, and that can help get you into the right frame of mind. In some disciplines it can be hard to have headphones on. I actually, if I'm designing, I can work to music, but if I'm work, if I'm actually making something, I can't have headphones in because I like to hear the sound of the metal being worked, I like to hear the sound of the flame as I'm soldering something, and if something pings off somewhere, I like to hear where it may have landed. So it depends on your discipline how you can listen to music and what other sounds around you that you want to have. But it can be really useful to to keep you focused for a period of time as you're making your piece and it's all coming together.

Sarah Kavanagh: 7:45

You may find that there's a particular element or technique that you need to practice and to master but enable to continue with the piece that you've designed. And it's quite often that you'll make several samples of a particular piece or several variations of it before you're completely happy to move forward. And again, this is where I would say make sure you allow enough time, because as you push yourself to design new pieces and to expand your creativity, you're going to be pushing your skills as well, and so you're going to need to have time to be able to practice these skills. And so another thing I always like to do is to have a. I have a diary, a notebook diary on my workbench, like a workbench journal, and in it I will put the date that I'm at the workbench and what piece I'm working on, and any notes that I have or any thoughts about the production stage, whether it's a particular measurement or if it's a note to say don't do this or do it this way, or in the in the, in my workbench journal, and then I can refer back to it if I'm making a similar piece or as the production stage progresses, I can refer back to the notes that I've made along the way. It's a really useful process, especially if you're going to make a piece again and again and again or a similar type of piece again and again, to refer back to it. It just speeds up the process in the future and it refines your workflow, and this is really important as you get busier on your craft as well. So having a workbench journal is my other recommendation. I have several of them now and they're all numbered, so I and they all dated, so I know exactly where I can find particular pieces and references to any notes, especially if I haven't made a piece for a particularly long time, then I can refer back to it. If I know roughly when it was made, I can go and find that work, that step, in my journal and look at my notes from when I made it previously.

Sarah Kavanagh: 10:01

As you're starting to put your design together, as you're working through the processes and your production stages, then make sure you're recording in some way what you're doing, whether that's having a camera set up so you, so it can be filmed, and try and remember to take photographs of each step because, again, this will also help you as you make more of these pieces. It will help remind you of what steps you've done and how you've done something. But also it's really good material for social media, for blog posts. It's really good to be able to show the client how something has come together because, remember, they may have seen the design, they may, and then they will see the end piece, the end piece of work that you're showing them. But what's a really nice thing to do is to also provide them with the process of it being made. They've come to you because you're a handmade artist. They want something made by your hands, and if you can show them the steps that you've gone through to make their piece, they're going to be singing your praises and really be invested in the work and the process.

Sarah Kavanagh: 11:11

Some of the work that I do may take eight weeks to make a particular piece, and so it's a good way to also keep in touch with clients and customers as well, so you can update them with how something's being made, the steps that are going in and where you are with their piece as well. So something that I like to give my bespoke clients is a little book which I get printed from, I think, blurb Books in the UK, but there are lots of other. I think they're in the UK, they may be in the Netherlands actually, but there's lots of other kind of small book publishing companies out there, and if it's a high value piece, then I can justify making a small booklet, and it just contains a little memento of photographs which they can then keep to show how their piece has come up being made, and it's a good bit of marketing as well, because maybe they will show that to somebody else and that will spread the word. So there are lots of ways that you can use the images and the recordings that you make of your work coming together. So if you can try and remember to take photographs often, sometimes we forget we get. I get so involved in what I'm making I completely forget to take any photos until something's almost complete. Get those steps recorded so that you can use it for lots of different marketing after, after your piece is completed. So those are my kind of tips and experiences of my production processes.

Sarah Kavanagh: 12:55

Obviously, as a piece is coming together and it's near the end, you've then got all the finishing and the checking for quality checking to make sure that it's exactly how you want it to be, and if it's not, there's no shame in starting again. There is no shame in starting again. You can, if you can, recycle your materials, start again, learn from your, from what's happened, learn from where you would change things or do it differently and do it again, and that's all part of the learning and growing your skills. And especially when it's a new piece, it's very unlikely that it's going to be as you want it first time around. You may have to break it down into different sections and if there's a particular element that you know is going to be a bit tricky, practice that area first. Practice what you need to do to get that particular part of your piece mastered so that when you come to bring it all together and you you're making that final piece, that bit of work, you know exactly how to do a particular element.

Sarah Kavanagh: 13:58

And I'll be talking more about the steps for checking quality and making sure that it's exactly how you want in the next episode. But for now I just wanted to give you some tips and strategies that I use when I'm making a piece and it's coming, and the piece is coming to life and through that production stage. So I hope this has been useful. If you want to drop me a comment, please do so. I would love to hear from you and hear about your own experience of bringing your pieces together and I will speak to you soon, thank you.