Enjoy your weekend!
I will, as soon as I have put the two batches of L’air du désert and Lonestar Memories together…
And as soon as I got everything ready for Paris, aiming at hitting the train tomorrow early, having lunch in Paris.
I will be back here on this blog Wednesday or Thursday.
I will travel to Paris, this Sunday. Quickly stopping by, to get some fresh air, continued by a journey into the High Normandy, visiting ….my bottle producer!
We shall see the new bottle for the first time, coming out of the press, all fresh and clean. That’s the plan. On Wednesday, I should be back.
Before I can leave for this trip, I need to get some orders out and more stuff sent to the printer. Thus, busy hours ahead.
I can’t wait…
Picture: a well know piece of Paris, seen 2006, slightly photoshop treated
Yesterday, we spent hours fine tuning shapes and colors of the labels that go onto bottles, boxes, samples,…It must all go into print Feb. 07, to be ready early -mid March.
While doing so I realized how I am not a designer myself and how my design gurus are. The curvature here, the font size there, the shade of the color, the size of things, the proportions, the texture of the paper, the texture of another paper…. you name it. We evaluated uncounted papers for a simple inlay. So I go: “it is not match making”
And I guess I am right there. Each discussion point, the shade, the font the curvature of the label is by itself all not match making, if looking at it individually it is not critical for success. But in the end, the impression you get, is by the sum of it all. And there, there details becomes match making.
I never thought about design (other than perfume creation) so much and I think I start to understand. Good design is a strenuous walk, going all the way down, never giving up too early. In the end: every lake is filled with drops of water.
Actually, in perfumery it is the same. Fighting for the right chord is a strenuous walk.
Picture: water droplets on orchid stem.
I went jogging for two hours yesterday. It started to snow the moment I left the house for the nearby woods. Running deeper and deeper into a white wall, through a true snow flurry, covering me after a while with snow from head to toe, there was peace and tranquility.
Somewhere in the middle of the grey forest, two riders with their horses came my way and passed by fast, almost furious, their horses nostrils and eyes wide open. The animals were all sweaty, with steaming white clouds in front of them, they ran through winter, stirring up the clear line of white crystals falling, reviving the air with their musk.
I think it was spring, riding south.
Imagine: a perfume capturing this moment. Winter riders.
Warm and sweaty musky horses in a winter forest.
But before I engage into another perfume adventure: Making sure I have enough in spring of what is on the shelves these days! This week sees the last design work on the labels for everything, preparation of upcoming trips etc. Have a great start into your week.
Snow everywhere these days.
Today I wish you a lovely weekend. Enjoy !
Yesterday, I met with a PR professional. Keeping an eye on what someone once told me: “PR is an excellent way to spend a lot of money with zero effect. But it can be a key factor for success if done right.” OK: I guess the challenge is to do it right. Like everywhere.
Although, you can do things right, perfectly right, and at the same time do it all wrong. Like Apple with the Newton many years ago. A great tool, never owned by myself, but by a friend. Its basics were done right, great technology, but it was too early for this product. People did not understand it.
So we, the PR guru and me, met for a first discussion of values and visions. Public Relations has a somewhat negative image because PR is about communication, and when people communicate they often do net tell the truth at 100%. This is the case in private life and it is true in business. Thus, values are important for me.
In my particular case, I consider it an experiment. I like the idea of communication a bit more aggressively in a variety of media.
Kind of shaking things up a little bit. Exiting niche if you want, because niche is getting bigger, and bigger, and greyer, and growing faster than mainstream and a trap for folks being real. As niche has nothing to do with niche these days. You can expect a bit more thoughts in the next weeks…
Picture: gravel, little natural works of the elements, seen 2008 at the pacific coast.
3 hours, a cup of tea, 1 cup of coffee and a few verbal derailments later:
I managed to print on the new printer.
Test.
Wow ! I am sort of proud…
Hotlanta Linda: Any ideas what goes as song with the picture (the printer and the successful “test”). The labels are not the ones that I will use for the sample lot numbers.
Today, my glasses broke (again) and as I said yesterday to the w.-factor: “I am ready for new glasses”, this comes in right in time. Sort of. What a strange coincidence. Need to inform my valet, though.
I am ready for new glasses because my eyes changed. And because I want a different style. Thus, we will get a new look in about a week. Until then I ‘ll use my reading glasses to fiddle around nearby objects. The new frame was love on first (blurry) sight. Expensive, though. But then: I sort of care what is in my face.
With my reading glasses, I will make samples today: Lots, lot and lots. First, I want to start pouring samples of the new kid in town, announced for end March/April: Orange Star. I do not have the labels for the new sample design, yet, but I want to make sure that I have the samples vials filled as this is the most time consuming job. Talking labels (again): I ordered another toy… a mid performance, dedicated label printer, that I will use to print lot numbers and sample labels on G01. 00109 Grip PE labels, coming custom-sized to my needs, on roles of 10000 or so. The seller says “The PF8 printers, available in direct thermal (PF8d) or thermal transfer (PF8t) versions, offer compact size, sturdiness, and silent operation, perfect for a variety of applications in retail, office, service industry and healthcare settings.”
I’ll guess we’ll add perfumery settings there.
Picture: Sample vials waiting…
I got my flanging aka crimping machine.
Hand operated, for small to medium number of bottles. Made in Italy, all shiny and fresh. I can’t wait…but need to. The new crimping bottles won’t get in before early March.
And a hint for Stephan: The pump will be in silver.
Photo: The crimping head. This piece will flange the metal on and around the glass rim.
Photo: the handle… you see: It is human operated.
Today, I am all busy writing text and doing calculations. A little bit on the tough side. You know…trying to come up with a plan for the transition phase from the old design Tauer to the new design Tauer. And texting some text for some web pages that should be live since a while.
Tomorrow comes a truck and visits us, coming right away from Austria. With all exciting stuff: Mémorables sized 15 ml bottles, 50 ml bottles of the design that we all know, pumps, more pumps (5000 pieces) for the new design bottle, sample vials, and more samples vials (I think this time I ordered 10000), and:
A flanging machine for the new bottles!
As the pumps there will be flanging pumps, I will not screw pumps anymore with the new design bottles. Now: “machine” sounds somewhat automatic. Actually, it is not. I figured that a little bit of moving forth and back will do good. Thus, in late March we will flange, and flange, and flange.
But now, we are all excited and worried: we ‘ll getting about 250 kg of material.
I guess this will be our gym program for the week.
Picture: part of an old machine (seen in Joshua National Monument, 2008)
Today, it is my pleasure to share with you another catalog that my tauer limited liability company got.
Clinic-dress and op - style! I guess the folks that sent me the catalog did not full understand what I do, but the more I look at some of the shirts, the more I like them. If shirts make you a doctor….
Ever wondered where they get the white shiny doctor and nurse look from? Want a nice clean green op dress? For sure, not every one has one. You can get it here.
Enjoy!
Picture: OP - STYLE catalog. or: How to enter surgery room dynamically and nicely dressed. Love it!