For a module at Plymouth University we chose to do an "etsy-project" where we design, develop, create, brand and sell a product on the website etsy.com
We, Flor and Lisa, chose to develop the brand "Runecycle":
We designed, developed, created and branded our products and are selling them on etsy.com. For products, we chose to design recycled jewelry with modern aesthetics and ancient background –
Anglo-Saxon Runes. They all have a specific meaning and add a special and personal quality to our jewelry. Our rings are all laser cut out of recycled/cut-off/found materials such as wood, acrylic, etc. and come in 3 different sizes.
_______ full explanation of development ______
During our time as exchange students at Plymouth University we: (Lisa Taurer (21) from FH JOANNEUM University of Applied Sciences, Graz, Austria & María Florencia Parejas from Universidad de Palermo, Buenos Aires, Argentina) decided to team up and develop our last project of this academic year together. The basis of our brief was to choose or create and then brand a product or service to be sold on www.etsy.com, an e-commerce website focused on handmade or vintage items and suplies, as well as unique factory-manifactured items. Our main objective was to develop a product that would allow to build a connection with people deeper than a fashionable aspect or the mere appearance. Therefore we thought of and researched meaningful symbols throughout history. We chose to work with the ancient Anglo-Saxon Runes, because each symbol represents a letter from the alphabet and carries different meanings, such as: fire, strenght, joy, success, etc. In terms of our product, we decided to create jewelry which is and always has been an important and meaningful medium used by women of all ages to express their personality and individualism. Connecting these two main ideas required bringing those ancient symbols into a modern context; and what better way to do it than using contemporary unusual technology to produce jewelry with historical background and trendy aesthetics? Bearing that in mind, we thought of either using the 3D printing or laser cutting facilities that the university offers. While researching on these two options, the image of all the leftover and cut-off materials that are available for free use at the laser cutting workshop, and we thought that it would be a great idea to design our product in a way that would allow us to re-use and recycle these materials. Given that, our project gained a completely new aspect which turned out to be key for the following procedure, since we adopted this ecological standard as a corner stone throughout our brand identity. For our first line of products, we decided to design rings, since we could easily fit them on the tiny pieces of waste material. We started the design process by selecting and redesigning the 28 runes, that we thought were the most significant and appealing. Each one of our final 28 ring designs are based on the shape of a certain rune. In order to include the chosen technology characteristics in our aestethic decisions, we used fine lines that gave our product a modern look while exposing the two-dimensional working procedure of laser cutting. The name “Runecycle” (rune + recyle) reflects the essence of our products and the values of our brand; which is also shown in the mindful selection of the materials we use to develop the screen-printed packaging and tags. Even the threads used to attach the latter to the rings are made out of recycled objects.Among the various materias included in this project one can find: both paper and plastic shopping bags, leftover paper from the art workshops at Plymouth University, as well as of course, the previously mentioned waste materials such as acrylic, MDF and plywood, (all of them in different colors and widths) found at laser cutting workshops. As we were making the first samples on MDF, we thought of creating a special crafty line,
encouraging the costumers to interact with the product by
acquiring them blank as they are, ready to be decorated. On the description we recommend coating the rings with polymer paint, for example:
acrylic paint or nail polish, that can easily be found at every crafty persons household. Following our sustainable train of thoughts while we were designing our business cards, we decided to save paper by perforating the tags so that they can be ripped off from the top and be kept by the costumers so they can always carry the meaning of the rune they have chosen, along with our website details. Furthermore we also thought of recycling the waste material that comes from the centers of the cutted rings to create three different pieces that can be used as pendants or beads to create future runic jewelry such as necklaces, bracelets, earrings and much more. Currently our 28 rings, laser cutted in 3mm black acrylic,
are abailable in three different sizes on our etsy account. Soon to follow are more rings in different sizes, colors and materials.
