I’ve been lucky that traveling has been a perk of many of my jobs. Sometimes the travel is not glamorous and you are not always going to high tourist destinations but a chance to see how other people live and work is always fascinating.
One of the places I work with gets their production done in China. The factories are huge, fairly modern and the staff are treated well. When I get to go on the production floor it never ceases to amaze me just how highly skilled they are.
They fly through garments in moments with each machinist doing a small portion of the garment, sometimes it’s a large seam, sometimes it’s nothing more than sewing on one single trim.
Big counter boards are at the end of each production line with the amount finished that day and the target to get to. At first I was astonished by how huge the numbers were but as I came to realise just how good the machinists were the numbers made sense. I like when the machinists have decorated their machines it always seems like something I would do!
It’s huge and fascinating and a part of my job as a designer that I’m grateful to be able to see.