The story behind the designs

Legacy over a profitable plan!

Memories of the innocent age Design label (C) All rights reserved 2019

The love and passion for traditional music and the magical art of lutherie led me, many years later, into an unexpectedly alluring hobby: the establishment of this popular blog, and  the creation of a massive digital art library with designs and decorations of  unique musical traditional instruments, inspired mainly by  the Rebetiko Era!

Few followers rightly asked me some time ago if my “passion “ for the Rebetiko era and the traditional lutherie , was nothing more than a clearly hidden commercialized profitable idea and an establishment of a profitable business model.

At the first glance this statement may sound true , especially with the latest establishment of B-PLAYER products at the Amazon Stores, and the creation of “The Art Book” digital art.

 But this statement is very far from what really happened in reality and what really motivated me  years ago, and still motivates me until nowadays 

The creation of the massive digital gallery ( more than 500 instrument designs ) was nothing more than thousand of personal hours , brainstorming and designing instruments for my own custom orders of musical instruments. 

None of the designs was created inorganically  with a final scope that  one day this design will be commercialized, or sold.

All of the designs ( successful and unsuccessful attempts ) were the result of a personal, time-consuming, inner dialogue with my deepest desires and in accordance  with an extensive historical research on traditional musical instruments.

Most of these designs were given freely and without any profit,  to luthier friends and followers of this blog after their requests 

At some point when  more and more followers started asking for available designs, then I decided to create “The Art Book “ at a price tag that would require thousand of copies to be sold just to pay off the thousand hours in design of the digital library I had created.

After some time ,  few professional and amateur luthiers approached me, asking me to use some of the designs for their custom orders with costumers

Initially  I gave freely many of these designs. 

But after a while as more and more requests where coming my way ( especially from people I didn’t know ) I created the “Limited Edition Art Book “ .... and successfully I found peace of mind as the requests minimized/eliminated , every time I was sending the link of sale to an individual who had shown interest.

Last but not least,  the creation of B-PLAYER merchandises Amazon Store , was again nothing more than creation of designs I made for personal use.

The first "clients" of my t-shirts were my family and closest friends who received the products as gifts 

As more requests where coming my way from people asking where to find and purchase these t shirts , I finally created the B-PLAYER online store.

Once again,  the final  profit of few dollars per item  on B-PLAYER, would require thousands dollars in sales to cover the hundred of hours invested to create these unique pieces of detailed personal art, made by hand.

From  business standpoint, I would say that all of these entrepreneurial  “attempts” (which someone may be suspicious of) , were and are , based on a non profitable, bad  financial model, which requires thousand of personal hours in work and creation with none strategically profitable plan. This  proves that the main scope and motivation for the creation of these products  is simply driven by only a personal motivation and passion for music and art. 

As happened with my articles on the greatest US Greek luthiers of the last century, I never thought to turn hundred of personal research hours, into a book ( as I had been approached to do so ) but instead, I decided that this knowledge regarding the master luthiers  should be given  to public freely and openly, far and foremost out of respect and admiration to their families, work, and legacy!

But as the financial profitable scope was never there, I have to admit that the idea leaving a legacy was always in back of  my mind after a while 

For this reason, I have started to kindly request that for  musical instruments created by friend luthiers carrying my designs, a label will accompanied under the maker's label, reminding hopefully to the next generations, the passion  and love I felt for this beautiful form of art.


Sincerely
Memories of the Innocent Age