Question: How to Start Working with Foreign Brands?

In the Questions column, we are looking for answers to the complicated questions together with an expert in the design field. Today, Ekaterina Elizarova, designer and the Design Mate’s guest editor in September, helps us to gain insight on how to start cooperation with foreign brands and how to further organize successful collaborative work.

Ekaterina Elizarova
designer, works with residential and public interiors, creates collections of furniture and lighting items for her own brand and leading global manufacturers.   

Professional Expositions. International expositions is the most convenient place for making professional contacts. Apart from working on collections for global manufacturers, I also design styles for my own brand. This allows me to create items without looking back to the philosophy, corporate policy and price brackets of the company. I consider this process to be a form of art. My limited series are displayed at various international expositions from  Milan to Singapore, where my design vision and presentation attract foreign brands. I guess, the expositions have been the starting point for the majority of our interesting projects. Each exposition is an opportunity, and your task is to make maximum use of this opportunity. 

International Contests. Recognition of your styles by the international professional community is another good reason for manufacturers to pay close attention to your designs and start cooperation.

Foreign media publications. My designs always appear on the pages of foreign media. Eventually, such media exposure significantly extends the coverage of our projects. For example, several US-based and even New Zealand-based customers have found us thanks to the publications in dedicated interior design magazines. 

Social Media. Today social media is the fastest way to tell about your new projects, share you vision of various areas of life and creativity. Most notably, each style is supported by the Identity of its creator that always attracts attention, and especially the attention of other people standing behind all global brands.

Although design is a kind of global language understood all around the globe, each country has its own specific local peculiarities. These peculiarities are to be considered, when you are working with the foreign brand. Almost any company in this industry has the many years of history, and the management always has its own vision of brand development. Such companies and their managers know the distinctive nature of their production and their strong points like no one else does. A one company may focus on the woodwork, another may specialize on leather, metal, et cetera. When you work with the brand, you have to keep in mind all these factors.   

When staring cooperation with a new brand, I usually hold several meetings with company, communicate with the manufacturer’s management and designers, take a look at the production process, study the archives. Such communication gives birth to the new concepts. Imbibing new knowledge, I create the items that reflect my identity, while keeping within the concept of the specific manufacturer.