CUSTOM DESIGN
In order to spark your imagination here are some of the typical ways in which we do custom design work and a few examples of what you can expect. The willowlamp notch system means that you can create your own willowlamp in any shape or form you can imagine. We love to see what other creative people can come up with using our deceptively simple idea. We challenge you to let you imagination run wild and we will fulfil it for you or we can work with you to develop the perfect willowlamp that works for your space.
THE WILLOWLAMP STORY
willowlamp’s story began in 2005 when Adam Hoets (an architect) and Sian Eliot (an industrial designer) were running a small design studio called TeamTwo design in Richmond/Melville in Johannesburg.
Adam was practicing as a full time architect and experimenting with ball chain to create woven spheres and chain curtains and was struggling to find a simple, elegant way to attach many pieces of chain to a structure. Sian was an up-and-coming jewellery designer experimenting with laser-cutting and the two were collaborating on various projects.
The breakthrough came in one of those blinding flashes of pure inspiration and genius between us: a “notch” in laser-cut steel frames to which the ball-chain could be attached. With this deceptively simple idea, willowlamp was born. The notch is now a registered patent of willowlamp™. The ingenuity of a fastener-free system, facilitated by the notch and combined with the power of digital cutting unleashed infinite possibilities in terms of design and scale.
In August 2005, following six months of research and development the first willowlamps were completed. The name and branding of ‘willowlamp’ was also created during the course of 2005 with the help of ‘Rex’ a Johannesburg based graphic design company (www.rexjhb.com). The owners, Olivier Schmidt and Rudo Botha were as fired up about the idea as we were and helped to capture the brand identity and forge our first website and set of brochures literally on a shoestring. We were still creating prototypes in our spare time while continuing with our respective careers.
After that a series of events that can only be described as ‘lucky breaks’ ensured that willowlamp was on the road to success. Upon submitting some images of our very first rather basic designs we were given a small feature in Visi in 2005, this was followed by our first order came from Suburban Films, a production company owned by Linda Notelowitz – a keen supporter of South African artists. This gave us the boost and momentum to launch the product at the Design Indaba Expo February 2006. The public response was overwhelming – people from all classes and cultures (including children and our cats) respond to this simple idea!
Through the Design Indaba we forged ties with our first international agents, the Amaridian gallery based in New York Soho and backed by Mary Slack would become our USA agent. Cameron Peters Fine Lighting based near Oxford would become our UK agent. These strategic partnerships have proved fundamental in building the company and the brand.
Securing our intellectual property from the beginning was essential because the core idea was ingenious yet it was also very simple (and easily copied). We began this process in April 2005 when we registered the ‘notch’ idea for patenting at CIPRO in Pretoria. In March 2006 we registered the idea internationally with the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) in Geneva with the help of Bowman Gilfillan attorneys. That gave us 36 months to test the product’s viability, before we needed to register in individual countries. Since 2006 we have had the help of Von Seidels (and Erik van der Vyfer) an intellectual property law firm in Cape Town.
We now have a full patent in South Africa and the USA.
Design, marketing, distribution and manufacture are each major undertakings in and of themselves and are a lot to take on for a small company just getting started. The first willowlamps were produced in our tiny Richmond studio then in a cottage at the back of our Melville house. It began to dawn on us that the task was too much to take on all at once so we found Greencraft, a specialist bespoke lighting manufacturer in Jeppestown, Johannesburg owned by Alexi Bizos. We in turn decided to open a design studio with a showroom in the then up and coming district of Braamfontein, which has since undergone a complete revival. We operated in this way from 2007 until 2010, which allowed us to slowly grow the company, the design collections and expand our client base and market.
During the course of 2010 however things took a dramatic turn. We decided that willowlamp that to provide better customer service and to be more sustainable as an entity it needed to do its own manufacturing. The company was to be split into two domains, design and manufacture. Sian set up and ran a factory in Johannesburg in Jeppestown while Adam relocated to Cape Town to set up a willowlamp design studio and to expand into the Cape Town market.
In the early part of 2011, Adam decided to purchase Sian’s half share of the business and took over the reins as the sole owner of willowlamp in April 2011, returning to Johannesburg to run the factory. By the end of 2011, Adam decided to relocate the business and staff to new premises in the up and coming design district of Salt River, Cape Town.
