What Goes into Making My Own Frame Line?
Designing and creating your own frame line is no small task. If you’re anything like me then you’ve scoured the internet looking for ways to develop your own styles and have them created. You’ve probably come across factories from all over the world that have differing conditions to create your own eyewear. Some require you to use their own premade styles but they’ll put your brand on them, ie. private label. Others require large minimum orders that are impossible to work around if you’re an independent optical with 1 or 2 locations. I mean 300-500 pieces is what some small opticals have in their whole dispensary and that is common required MOQ with some factories. But we’re getting off topic, many people don’t even know where to begin when they want to create their own glasses. So let’s scratch the surface and go over some main points that we often go through when helping to develop an eyewear brand.
Know Your Demographic
Any time you’re starting a business one of the first things you should know is what demographic(s) you’re focusing on. Starting a frame line is no different. Are you trying to appeal to the luxury market, budget friendly, eco friendly, kids, petites, XL, the list goes on and on. While you can broaden that and encompass some of those into one line, it’s better to start with a pretty specific demo and build from there. Often times the people I work with already own an optical or optometry practice and they are aware of what is selling well for them. This gives us the opportunity to build some designs around that and then push the boundaries elsewhere. Other times people want to try and penetrate a totally different niche and haven’t been able to find the right styles to do so and that’s where we come in and make your own. But all of this starts with knowing who your clientele is and who you want to be wearing your eyewear.
General Stylings
Once you have a general idea of your key demographics you can build your general stylings around that. For example, if it’s luxury you’re focusing on then you know they’re going to expect things like intricate details, the highest quality hinges, and unique but classic styling. Petite styles need to have shorter temples. And so on and so forth. Other things to pay attention to here would be general color palettes, if you’re going to have a consistent detail across all styles, etc.
Special Requirements
There has been a big movement towards things like eco acetates recently and using materials that are as green as possible. Others are using specific rivet shields to make their brand more recognizable. If you’re thinking about doing something like this or anything else that may be out of the ordinary then it’s best to be up front with whatever factory you end up choosing to work with. Every factory has different capabilities so you’ll want to check into those options before you begin moving forward.
Designs
After the specifics are dialed in it’s time to move on to designs. Every person is different as far as how much they want to do with designs. We have people that want to have full control from start to finish and just use us to produce their finalized designs with their own CAD drawings. Others want to send us detailed sketches and have us develop the CAD models for our machines. Or we have others that send us rough pencil sketches to give a general idea and we work with them through those to bring their dreams to life. We are happy to work through the design process however it’s easiest for each client but every factory is different and may have different requirements.
Prototyping/Samples
Prototypes go hand in hand with designs. We can tell a lot by looking at computer generated models but it helps to have a real life prototype to see a physical representation. So at LFVR we produce 3D printed rough prototypes before we produce samples. We can tweak and change these prototypes as needed. Once we have approval on each style’s prototype we will begin creating samples to send you for approval before we jump into production.
Production
After samples are approved production begins and we take the culmination of everything we’ve gone through to bring your own eyewear line to life. The design and prototyping phase is typically longer than any other part of this. In our experience we typically would have your order shipped within 2-3 weeks assuming we didn’t have to special order any material or anything. But we also quote each job specifically once all of the details are ironed out.
Now this is a very simple explanation of what goes into creating your own glasses. If there is something we haven’t covered, always feel free to reach out. We’re happy to help answer any questions and hope to bring more quality made eyewear to the world!
