During the summer of 2017, our company launched “The Search for The Next Great Bead.” Our company was prepared to source, manufacture and market the bead, we just needed to find our special designer. We wanted to manufacture a product that was designed by someone who loved beads.
We knew there were many designers working throughout the world who probably had an idea for a bead that didn’t exist yet. Their entries arrived and we carefully reviewed concepts against beads currently being sold.
Little did we realize that someone in our own backyard would design our new bead. Lena Gillespie’s proposal arrived and immediately caught our attention. Was it possible that her idea for a bigger shaped bead was not currently being made?
We discovered the shaped bead she submitted was considered a Rhombus; a parallelogram with opposite equal acute angles, opposite equal obtuse angles, and four equal sides. Her sizing was much bigger than a regular seed bead and to show us how her bead would work she submitted “larger than life” foam core beads so we could actually play with them like a puzzle.
She also submitted some truly wonderful sketches showing the bead in use. We were captivated.
Since Lena lived close by, we asked her to meet with us to tell us a little bit more about her submission. Unbeknownst to her we had already selected her bead. A prize ceremony was scheduled and then Lena had to wait several months until her prototype arrived, so she could finally hold her bead in her own hand.
John Bead Corp. followers would know that Lena’s designs featuring our other products appear in our magazine ads and on social media regularly. We kept her very busy until her new bead arrived.
