Category: Blog

The evolution of a product

I was working as camp Manager in Maasai Mara when one of the Maasai in charge of security gave me a gift; a small elephant necklace carved in cow bones.

What if I did it with plastic from a CD? The idea was stuck in my mind for the entire season.

Once home, I tried to cut the same shape on a DVD but it was harder than expected. The trunk was getting broken all the time, the plastic was not melting together, the colours were fading.

After trying hundreds times the elephant necklace was born.

We started to sell at the camp and it was a huge success.

We got featured on the Air Kenya magazine “Ndege News” and some people came to the camp just to buy the small red elephant necklace.

I was very proud, but not totally satisfied.

My mum told me once that Elephants with the trunks up bring good luck and that is what everyone needs, isn’t it? So I changed the original design.

Cutting was even more challenging than before.  But the result was much nicer.

At the same time, I discovered metal stamping. I totally fell in love with it.

But plastic cannot be hammered…so I wrote something on a piece of aluminium taken from an old broken teapot. I wrote a message to myself “NEVER GIVE UP”.

This is how I started “The Elephant with a Message” that got sold out in very short time at the camp.