MAY 1st, It's On Again For Young & Old

With only two weeks to go, I figured that now is a good time to intro what we have lined up for the opening of Second Annual CHD Design Comp. 

Let's hold back on the buttery poetry and just hit this thing with a blatant dot pointed list, then for those of you that want to skip the rigmarole to follow, you at least know what is in stall for the launch.

• April 27th, we announce an artist who we are going to be doing a One Day Exclusive with. This campaign is going to set the theme for the entire competition. Keep your peepers this way. 
  
  
• April 29th, 9am TILL 9am on April 30th, we drop a ONE DAY EXCLUSIVE with this artist. The last day of April to launch the 2021 Annual Design Comp, we have a three piece collection that will drop for 24 hours only. This is not the one you want to miss.
  
  
• May 1st, the gates open. Entries for the 2021 Design Comp will start to be taken.

What is, the Design Comp?

...do you enter?

...would you bother?

Besides stretching out the creative banjo-string and the numbing few weeks you'll have in self-isolation... The winner will have their piece produced and listed online for an exclusive short run, (in which you will take design royalty on). A runner-up design will also be chosen and produced for the second place designer. 

...is it?

Entries will open May 1st and close on the 31st

The winners will be drawn by the team at CHD. Throughout the competition term, we will be posting images of the designs to gauge appeal, which will influence the final decision. We did originally want to do a voting system, however we didn't want this to be overrun by some stray sweetheart with 100k followers voting in their pig meat design. 

GET AFTER IT!

As always, this is the setup:

As I am sure you've picked up on this by now; we thrive off the exclusivity factor of our designs. From the monthly exclusives, boiled down to this even more intense short window - only one day to get your mitts onto this release. 

The exclusivity of these designs is to build a further intrinsic value into your piece - beyond the surface aesthetic. The idea of your particular ring design being cranked out and sold for years to come, we feel dilutes the significance of that little piece of metal perched on your knuckles. What's the good worth of an heirloom if the company is still selling that design once you hand it on? Or no defined purpose or importance of that period it was sold for? There's still something to be said about the stories that you build into the ring yourself, however we want this to be shared by the select, dedicated few. We also love the idea of worlds aligning and you bumping into a stray person on a night out that managed to slot into that 24 hour purchase opportunity, somewhere else on the planet and they also share the same heirloom. At least for us, that's something kind of special...


That is all well and good BUT, the design itself needs to be master... and good god, it is. We essentially can't miss when working with Jack Ankersen. The bloke is a genius.

Let us leave you here, see the original artwork done by Jack that we used for the design. 

 

Woke up at 3:30am, alarm wasn't due for another hour, but instead of hustling for a few more minor winks, I just headed into work. 

There's been a lot of smack on my mind with work in the past few weeks that has nearly driven me mad, so instead of sitting in am all-white room pulling the legs of spiders, I figured it would be best to give you all a bit of context in a "Letter from the owner". So here it is...

Firstly, I want to give my most genuine love out there to all our customers that have been unbelievably understanding of longer wait times on production and delay in communication on customer service.  

The main message of all this letter is to let you know that by no means imaginable are these issues not been addressed with the hardest grind and attention to get everything sorted ASAP. I am so aware of the issues we face and the weight of this is taking a solid toll on me, but that is irrelevant, because until you all get exactly what we promise and you as customers deserve - without trying to sound like a Reserve Grade Tony Robbins - I won't stop the brutal slog until we iron out all these issues. 

It really breaks my heart that after the long hard fought hours that I have put into building CHD, that we may be doing lasting damage by not delivering on some fundamental aspects of production times and quick replies on customer service. So those elements have my complete focus over the following weeks and months. Know that!

I've currently got the lower back of 65 year old carpet layer, from carrying the preverbal weight of these current issues. The thought that any of you assume apathy or lack of attention makes me ill, so please know how much it means to me and the team to make sure these problems are dealt with it as quick as humanly possible. 

So what has been happening?

We've been flogged by a unique combination of a mega flow of orders, (shout out to the brilliance of Conor Jon Taylor's Prosperity Design), an understaffed in studio and casting house - due to COVID limitations and just growing pains from all you legends getting onboard the CHD journey.

Jewellers are a rare breed and we are not willing to concede any ground on quality, so finding the right jewellers to join the team has been a tall task. We are sniffing about all the right areas and we should have a couple more jewellers joining the team soon to help bail us out of this beautiful problem.

Gemstones and supplies have been choked up and to add insult to injury, our packaging is now stuck at the ports in Sydney, forcing us to send out a few orders in old packaging, which I hate doing - as we put such an emphasis on this area of our business. If you don't know about our packaging concept, have a watch here;

 There has been the odd customer that has wanted to bury their {naked} knuckles into my teeth due to the delay, but for the most part, you've all been such utter legends and I can thank you enough. 

So for now, I'm going to beer bong another 14 coffees and keep getting after it. Stay safe and I'll be here.

- Ryan

ENTRIES, ARE NOW CLOSED, for the first Annual CHD Design Comp. 

Total design submissions; 482. 

Look, this was insane. To be honest, coming into this thing, I was somewhat apprehensive about both; the number of submissions and the quality of the entries. I was expecting a few 'ok' designs, but primarily just some roughed up sketches on the back of a ciggie pack countless dick pics and I figured we'd need myself or one of our resident designers here to submit a design under a cheeky alias, so that we had something that could be turned into a workable design. But, 'pull my pubes and call me Peter', the designs have been unreal. Genuinely blown away. There has been legitimately so many designs that I would love to have in the CHD line up. 

Even after the first day, I was forced to re-calibrate on my apprehension, as some amazing designs started to flood through. To an extent, I have been feeling somewhat guilty of the effort you are all putting in. Mainly just honoured, but I am already feeling the weight of judging this thing and letting people down. So believe me, we are taking this very serious and we are super appreciative of all the effort that went into these designs. A huge THANK YOU from us at CHD. 

Let's get down to it. Here's how the coming few weeks will play out. 

Over the weekend, we will be culling the entries down to the final 100. This will be a ruthlessly hard 3 days and extremely hard. But we need to start somewhere. 

Monday, 4th till Friday the 8th:
We will begin the final series. 
This week, we will post 20 designs a day on our IG and Facebook. Getting feedback from all of you on your favourite designs. 

This week will decide the 10 finalists. 

Monday, 11th till Friday the 15th:
We'll announce these finalists during this week.

Monday, 18th till Friday the 22nd:
We'll showcase the 10 finalists and their designs. 

Friday, May 29th:
Announce Winner, of the first Annual CHD Design comp.

We've got some real fun things planned for you in the coming few weeks, so it won't be a tedious waiting period. Keep aggressively close and we'll keep you entertained... 

Thanks again to all the legends who entered. It was an absolute honour! You all made the FIRST Design Comp feel like the real beginning of something great. 

- Ryan
Founder | Head Designer