LBE Design Turns One!
Sep 01, 2019
The past year at LBE Design has been the most rewarding and challenging of our careers: we’ve stepped beyond our comfort zones more times than we can count, traveled to places we could barely find on a map, and had the great fortune of meeting many incredible people who have had a profound impact on our success. No matter where we are or what we’re doing our work always seems to lead us to the most amazing people, and if we’ve learned only one thing over the past twelve months, it is everyone has a story. Something we never would have expected is that people would want to hear ours.
Today, on our 1 year anniversary we’d like to respond to popular requests by sharing a little bit about ourselves and how LBE Design came to be.
Long before we hatched the idea for LBE Design, we knew creating our own business was something we were destined to attempt. Having grown tired of our corporate careers and keen on travel and meeting people, Jon and I knew it was time to take the leap: after a collective thirty years working with large corporations, we needed a change. While business ideas came and went, the culture and values we were determined to instill in our future brand always stayed the same.
When we launched LBE Design in September 2018, we set a precedent for ourselves to always put people first, create high-quality products our customers would love, and be uncompromising in our environmental and socially sustainable practices. In taking the leap and creating LBE Design we saw the practical need for high-quality ceramic planters - incorporating our values was a very happy bi-product of the beautiful products we set out to produce.
Jon and I share a passion for two things: nature, and thoughtful design. We’ve always loved the idea of bringing green indoors, but over the years we realized plants can be difficult to care for in an indoor setting, and most of the beautiful vessels we encountered branded as ‘planters’ are not designed with the plant in mind. Being the plant lovers we are, we’ve put up with it all: we’ve cut tops off 10-inch grow pots that did not fit “10-inch” planters, we’ve ruined our floors by bringing ceramics with drain holes inside, and we’ve overwatered our plants that didn’t have adequate drainage. Enough was enough. Our mission at LBE Design is to produce planters as functional as they are beautiful, and we’ve used our own experiences as our roadmap.
Over the past year, we have grown and changed, not only as a business but as individuals. Going into this we never imagined that our personal lives would become so intertwined with our brand, but as we continue on this journey, we are grateful for the opportunity to share our story and this milestone. Many thanks for your support over the past year. We are excited for the challenge in front of us and looking forward to sharing new experiences as we forge ahead.