basically we will give you the scoop on how we develop original products from initial sketch to final launch! Cozy up in your favorite spot, and let’s get into it!
Our factory has always been to provide you with high quality, safe and well curated products for your silicone crafting supply needs.
We strongly believe in supporting our industry. When deciding what items to carry in our shop, we do our best to research what’s on the market to ensure we carry products that are created with utmost integrity, originality, and care. We like to support other small shops, and we take great pride in carrying designs that have been lovingly created by other talented entrepreneurs – artists that have created unique products from the very first sketch.
On top of supporting original designs and concepts, our product development team works with reputable manufacturers for unique and well designed products. Our goal is to ensure that your craft supplies are safe, aesthetically pleasing, and of course, perfect for teething gums!
So how do Chang Long custom designed, Original products begin? Let’s find out!
1) The first step starts with YOU – Customer Requests!
When customers message us requesting products, it’s often because they aren’t available in the market! All of your messages and requests are catalogued and saved. Yep, that’s right! If you send us a DM, email, or comment with a request, we record it and our product development team is notified. We want to support our customer needs the best we can.
If the request is in line with the market trends we’ve been following, we start to move toward making the concept come to life here in our own studio. After lots of discussion, the team decides whether it is a “go!” and then initial sketching begins!
Our goal with our Original products is to design teethers that are beautiful and intricate. Every color, design depth and tiny detail is an additional layer on the mold that needs to be manufactured so we can get our final product just right!
Our Original teethers are intricate and multi-layered for a number of reasons. We find that it makes a more beautiful design! Variety is the spice of life, and the same sentiment is true of variation in depth, details, color, shade, etc. It also sets our brand apart, as it provides an extra layer of originality and careful thought to make our products stand out! Complex molds create a unique design that will be instantly recognizable – we want you to know our teethers when you see them! The high expense of our detailed molds also give our product a level of finish that is difficult to replicate or copy.
Step One: Ideas to Sketches
After concept approvals, began to dream up and sketch designs. She is always ensuring the design will be safe so that we are confident it will pass safety requirements when we send it off for third party testing. We also focus on designing a teether that is intricate and intentional – our signature detailed designs make us unique compared to other brands in the market!
The initial sketch is always started as an outline that will be subject to a choke test. Our goal is to design products that are inspirational and beautiful, but more importantly, compliant and safe. Dorothy will often first outline the shape on paper, cut it out, and pre-flight it with a choke test to see if the shape will most likely pass.
Why is a choke test so important? A choke test simulates the shape of a child’s expanded throat. If any piece of the teether can be seen through the other side of the choke test, it will not pass initial safety requirements and ultimately be an unsafe teether. This is a vital step in our process that we take very seriously. Some elements of the design may need to be changed or exaggerated to ensure that the entire teether or parts of it won’t pass through a choke test. If any part of it fails, back to the drawing board goes! You can find our safety choke tests here for your own preliminary testing of any teething toy or design you make as well!
This was to ensure that the head or legs wouldn’t be able to pass through the choke test. Ultimately, after the final mold and teether have been produced, we will then send samples of the finished product to our CPSC compliant testing agency, in order to ensure we have certification for the design. It’s important to think conscientiously about safety at every step of the design process.
Once the design is approved internally, will turn the sketch into a 3D drawing so that we can have as realistic of a design as possible before approving a mold. The cost of a mold is expensive, and so it is important to ensure the design is completely perfect before the mold is made.
Our goal with our Original products is to design teethers that are beautiful and intricate. Every color, design depth and tiny detail is an additional layer on the mold that needs to be manufactured so we can get our final product just right!
Our Original teethers are intricate and multi-layered for a number of reasons. We find that it makes a more beautiful design! Variety is the spice of life, and the same sentiment is true of variation in depth, details, color, shade, etc. It also sets our brand apart, as it provides an extra layer of originality and careful thought to make our products stand out! Complex molds create a unique design that will be instantly recognizable – we want you to know our teethers when you see them! The high expense of our detailed molds also give our product a level of finish that is difficult to replicate or copy.
Step Two: 3D Printed Mold
After the initial design has been passed back and forth between us and our manufacturer and all tweaks and changes have been made, a final version of the teether is 3D printed in plastic and shipped to us. This allows us to see the tangible version of our idea, prior to the expensive cost of the final mold needed for production.
This is a crucial step for us to examine the shape and design of the teether in person. A lot can be lost in translation between sketches and renderings, so having a physical representation of the teether gives us an opportunity to review any design decisions we’ve made. Think picking paint colors for your house: sometimes what you think looks good on a Benjamin Moore website looks completely different in person and on your walls! We can stare at our computer generated images all day long, but there’s something so wonderful about holding the physical version of our design. At this point, we also triple check safety (again!) and adjust any sizing to ensure full compliance.
Step Three: Final Details
After we approve the 3D plastic mold, we begin to finalize our color selections! Matching silicone colors to our standard lineup is really important to us because it makes YOUR design process easier! You put so much thought and care into the items you create, so we want to make your product selections are as EASY as we can make them. We either select colors that we already have in our standard lineup, or we decide to use brand new colors with the understanding that we may need to incorporate them into our shop moving forward.
Hole placement is also finalized at this stage. We try to give you options. If only one hole is possible, we make sure that wherever the hole is placed, the way the teether hangs looks natural.
Step Four: Production & Packaging
Waiting for our new teethers is always hard. They can take weeks to produce due to the complexity of the molds… but they are always worth the wait!
Our Original teethers are carefully placed in our own branded packaging. When the products (finally!!) arrive, our wonderful team quality checks samples, counts them and then enters the new teethers into our inventory system.
Step Five: Marketing & Launch
Once a brand new product has arrived, it gets passed to our Creative and Marketing team! Together with Product Development, they review a timeline for launch. They also again review the “why” for the product – why are we carrying this item? Who will be purchasing it? Why is it special? All of these details will help them market the product to you in the best way possible – so you can create endless possibilities!
Post time: Feb-08-2023