Hello? New York is calling!
When one of the world's most influential museums of art and design calls to place an order, one can rightfully assume a major achievement. A call from MoMA in 2015 sent us into fits of joy but also unfolded into a colossal challenge.
First, the requested color posed an issue, then the produced boxes suddenly had strange spots, and later, they got stuck in customs for what felt like an eternity. A little odyssey involving adhesive dots, sandpaper, phone calls, exhibitions, and must-haves.
The Color
"The MoMA wanted 800 Zwitscherboxes exclusively with dark green fronts. And exactly this plastic was hard to come by on such a scale! So, here we had the large order from one of the world's most significant design institutions, and not enough green!" Dennis chuckles in retrospect. "At that time, we were still producing in relatively small quantities. The call from New York caught us off guard."
The Spots
"When we could finally produce the boxes in MoMA green, we got a shock!" nods Philipp. "In the first batch, many fronts had dark spots shimmering through the green! We couldn't deliver them like that. A fiasco! After all, the MoMA was already waiting! We couldn't produce additional Zwitscherboxes because the green was in such short supply. So, we had only one option: painstakingly rework each box by hand!"
The Solution
"The dark spots in the green turned out to be adhesive dots. We had never had this problem before!" explains Philipp. "Somehow, glue darker than usual had been used this time," he continues. So, hundreds of green boxes made a stopover in Hamburg. "We had to carefully remove each front and hand-sand the dark glue," shakes Dennis his head. "It wasn't pleasant!" Entire nights were spent sanding away.
The Customs
But the odyssey continued. After the second batch of green Zwitscherboxes was ready for shipment in India, it turned out it couldn't be shipped directly from India to the USA. At least not with the shipping company MoMA was working with. "However, we only found out when the shipment was at customs," rolls Dennis his eyes. "It was unbelievable, the boxes were stuck there for weeks!"
The Success
"The order came in 2015," recalls Philipp. "A year later, we attended a trade show for the first time. And what can I say: we were literally stormed! The MoMA presence was a clear buying recommendation; many retailers had seen the box in New York and now wanted to order it. A customer immediately ordered hundreds of boxes for her six stores in Switzerland, stating: 'I saw them at MoMA, I must have them!'"
Fun Fact in the End
Dennis on his phone calls with customs: "I've never made as many phone calls as I did back then!"
