2010-08-25

Wordmarked at Formex

“Formex provided us with lots of new contacts and potential deals. Also, it became clear which part of our business concept should have priority.” The words are Caroline Bissman´s, who is one of the two partners of Wordmarked, a company displaying its products at the Formex design fair on 12–15 August.

Wordmarked’s business idea is to create designs based on words, phrases and messages worth considering. With a business idea recently conceived, the primary purpose of the Formex exhibit was of course to establish contacts and build up a customer base.

“We met hundreds of potential customers in four days. The personal encounter is worth very much now that we’re about to contact them again,” says Caroline.

But Wordmarked had another, just as important, purpose with their presence at the trade fair – to find out which portion of their business idea gets the best response.

“Selling our designs to companies manufacturing products is one of three tracks we’ve followed since the start, but it’s also the track we thought would be the hardest to develop,” says Caroline.

At the Formex fair, it turned out to be the other way around. Several companies showed great interest in using Wordmarked designs on their products.

“It’s a fabulous feeling to start designing for specific customers,” Caroline continues.

Wordmarked is also busy developing its own line of products. Their aim is to have nothing but Swedish-made, high-quality and well-designed products. That is also a winning concept, which was evident at Formex.

“Surprisingly enough, the city museums were the most frequent visitors to our stand,” Caroline explains. There are already interested parties planning to develop products together with us. Of course, we take that as an expression of approval.

Caroline and her business partner Ingela Johansson are now facing an exciting autumn. They have many contacts to follow up, and we hope to see Wordmarked designs in many contexts in the future.

Formex in Stockholm is the largest and leading trade fair for Nordic indoor design. Formex 2010 hosted 850 exhibitors and more than 22,000 national and international visitors.