This week, BDT founder Hilary Dildine gives us a closer look at her life as both an artist and manager of a successful business. She offers some great "Behind the Art" insights! (You can also follow Hilary on Instagram to see pictures of BDT in action.)
How did BDT
get started? What was the spark?
Bleu de Toi
Handmade really began in the Fall of 2009, when Josh and I were married. We are
both
artists and had a very “DIY” wedding, with all sorts of personal touches
that reflected the creative people that we are. I really wanted something to
remember the day in a visual way and record guests. Searching through blogs and
photos (we didn’t have Pinterest back then!), I saw something that inspired me
to use fingerprints and a hand-drawn tree design as our guestbook. We actually
did a couple before settling on the one we used, the Great Oak, because it was
hard to figure out how much space we would need for fingerprints. The first
tree we did was the Twisted Oak, to this day it is our most popular design.
Everyone at our wedding (and for months after) was raving about how
clever the fingerprint tree had been and how they had never seen anything like
it! I didn’t love my desk job and wasn’t making enough money there, so I
decided to give it a go and see if we might be able to sell more on Etsy. In
February 2010, we became to first people online to sell hand drawn guestbook
fingerprint trees.
In what
specific ways has BDT grown and changed since you first started?
In the
beginning, we were running things out of our tiny newlywed
apartment. I drew everything on my coffee table, printed shipping labels from
my cramped breakfast nook, and filled the living room with packages weekly. I
was also working full-time for a university doing event planning, so I had to
come home after working a full day and then work some more. We moved to a
bigger place with a garage and a studio office, but
I was getting pretty burned out with my schedule, so in the fall of 2012, I quit
my day job and dedicated myself full-time to BDT. I saw my quality of
life improve a lot after that and business really expanded. Now we offer so
many more designs, most of which are prompted by client special requests. We still love
working with our clients who are all planning celebrations for really exciting
times in their lives. A lot of joy and excited energy that is wrapped
up in communications with these special people.
Another way that
things have changed since we started is I now have helpers! It used to be a
2-person show and now we have a whole team to make sure everything gets done
with someone specializing in each specific aspect of the work. So much more
fun!
What are your
inspirations?
I began my
journey as a painter with my MFA in painting from the Savannah College of Art
and Design. With Josh’s active involvement in the LA Contemporary Art scene, I
still see my fair share of cutting edge artwork. I think the designs we make
are very inspired by antique botanical etchings though. Since adding to them
with fingerprints and signatures brings in more color and complexity, our motto
is “simple is beautiful”. Lately (since the birth of my son in 2012) I have
been looking at a lot of beautiful children’s book illustrations, which have
been really inspirational to me and the way I approach making images that are
both aesthetically pleasing and tell a story.
What does
your business partnership with Josh look like?
When we started
making products for BDT, Josh was in grad school as an art student and he
helped me craft most of our canon of original designs. I used to say that I
wanted everything we did to have both of our handiwork in it, since I felt like
the way I draw and the way he draws is the perfect combination of structure and
organic lines (I am ‘structure’). His career has progressed in lots of
different chapters over the past 5 years and his involvement has fluctuated
with it. We had a season where he was not teaching and working solely on
painting in his studio and drawing/packing/shipping for BDT. It wasn’t ideal
for our marriage to be so intertwined in each other’s work, so we decided to have
him take a step back. Now he oversees the approval of all new designs and peeks
in every day to run quality control. Whenever I have a sticky situation with
new work or an issue with a client, I run it by him and he advises how it
should be handled. I get very practical sometimes, and Josh is the “yes” guy.
He’s always suggesting free shipping if we are running behind, telling me I can
fit in an order for a bride who’s event is next weekend and her brother threw
her other guestbook away by mistake, and solving ways to bring a client’s
vision to life that I can’t see. I may be running the everyday grunt work of
what we do, but he is the constant voice that keeps our customer service superb
and our products flawless.
Do you have any drawings or
products that you’re particularly fond of?
So, everyone
orders the
Twisted Oak. It is a super stunning design and we probably ship out
10 each
week of just that alone. I am really fond of the medium
Birch Tree and
Twin Aspens though. They are
so delicate and lovely. I always get tickled about
new designs that I’ve spent a lot of time working on. The wine bottle was a fun
discovery. Oh, and I really like the
Willow Tree. So many drawings, its hard to
keep track of them all sometimes!
Dreams/plans
for the future?
We have A LOT of dreams for how to grow in the future. The
fun thing about being married to another artist who is quite the dreamer is all
of the brainstorming sessions we have about new things that we can make and
sell to you fine folks. I’ve got a whole binder chocked full of “next steps”
and ideas that I have no idea when I see come to life. We recently hired Nick
in the fall to take over a lot of the business side of what we do and to man
marketing and growth (he actually has a degree in that stuff!), so now I can
focus on making things. We have plans for customizable artwork for the athletic
community, wedding invitations that compliment our guestbook designs, and maybe
children’s book illustrations.
