Freitag – from bags to riches
Words | Celeste Neill-Duvoisin BROTHERS MARKUS, 37, and Daniel Freitag, 36, both graphic designers from Zurich, were looking for a functional and watertight robust bag to carry their designs in. Inspired by courier bags, they decided to make one themselves. They gathered up the bits and pieces they could find by the motorway near their flat – remnants of old seat belts, truck [...]
Words | Celeste Neill-Duvoisin
BROTHERS MARKUS, 37, and Daniel Freitag,
36, both graphic designers from Zurich, were
looking for a functional and watertight robust
bag to carry their designs in. Inspired by courier
bags, they decided to make one themselves.
They gathered up the bits and pieces they
could find by the motorway near their flat – remnants of old
seat belts, truck tarpaulins and cycle inner tubes – washed
them in the bath and produced their first prototype.
Unintentionally, the Freitags had just launched themselves
into a business that would kick-start a worldwide trend in
bag design – a design so unique that the New York Museum
of Modern Art added one to its collection.
Today, the company produces more than 40 different
Freitag bags – it recently expanded into travel bags,
iPod covers and unlikely as it may sound, footballs – and
has shops in Zurich, Davos and Hamburg, as well as a
further 350 retail partners worldwide. If recent profits are
anything to go by – last year’s turnover was up by 25.7%
on the previous year – its reach looks set to grow. All this
without a single advertising campaign.
The company itself, however, has stayed relatively small,
with just over 60 employees. Have the brothers managed
to retain the vision and philosophy of their brand, too?
Daniel Freitag:
“We work well together and complement each other in
our working environment,” explains Daniel. “Marcus is
more conceptual and three-dimensional and I am more a
sparring partner, focusing on the graphic, visual part of the
work, and recently more on the IT and the web side.
“It helps that we are brothers. We are family and so there
isn’t the pressure of partners possibly splitting,” he continues.
“It’s not a question of asking if you have the right business
partner or looking for new business partners. Even when there
is conflict we are always confident it will sort itself out.”
Daniel also points out that the family bond gives the
brothers a sort of communication shorthand, speeding up
the working process. “We know each other so well we just
have to mention a few expressions and we know what the
other person is thinking. But it can have its downside too
for the people working around us. I think it would be helpful
for us to be clearer about our work divisions. And for people
outside the company, it’s not always clear who they should
talk to. But no one has ever asked me: ‘Who is the boss?’”
Daniel also recognises the importance of external
support. “From an early stage we brought in other team
members,” he explains. “There have been two of us from
the start, so we are used to sharing ideas and listening to
other opinions. It’s not a question of telling employees:
‘We are the owners and this is what we do.’ However, our
sense of humour has been a little difficult to transfer to
our other employees. For example, in the packaging, we
install little jokes that make it fun. That is because we are
graphic designers and passionate about communication.”
Markus Freitag:
“Initially we were just happy to be making a product that
we really loved. It wasn’t so much for the money, so we
didn’t really care so much how it sold,” Markus recalls. “I
was dealing more with the trucking companies for material,
and Daniel was setting up the invoices and databases for
the stores. Our friends had stores and sold the bags there
as a favour. It was all very incidental at first.”
The first big change was taking on the first employee,who was brought in to help with the cutting and sewing.“When we realised that someone was relying on making
a living out if it, we began to work on it seriously because it
wouldn’t be fair to the employee otherwise,” he says.
Having employees not only necessitated more forward
planning, it had an unexpected side effect. We talk to each
other like normal people and have stopped reverting back to
childhood arguing and are focused on the issue because other
team members are there. The team dynamic, even if it’s just
a partnership, can take you further. It can be more inspiring
than just working alone.”
Ask for a simple definition of who does what though and
things get a little more complicated. “We don’t have specific
titles,” Markus says. “We oversee product development and
creative topics. We have one side of the company that is in
charge of all the operative aspects – we have a CEO, a head
of finance, head of operations, head of commercial activity,
etc, but Daniel and I are the only shareholders. We meet the
management board four times a year in this official capacity.”
Design-wise though, Markus and his brother are still very
hands-on: “The operations team gives us a brief and we
present a prototype to fit that. They will say if it meets the
production costs or the market plan and we go back and
forth changing the prototype until we all agree.
“The design has to fit a five-year development plan,
which we constantly work on. Working this way is a good
filter for our creative process, especially now that we are
dealing with a second generation of customers who are
younger than us. We need outside discussions and input.”
On the subject of future plans, however, both brothers
remain tight-lipped; Freitag tends to reveal details about
its new products only when they are available to buy. One
thing that does seem likely though is further expansion.
“We would like to have a bigger budget for development
and hire a designer who could develop with the company,”
says Markus. “In a way it shouldn’t be such a personal
design. In the future it would be good to become more
open but still in keeping with the values of the company.
This should also involve cool products that are made
from a new material that can be recycled. We like Freitag
products to be very sustainable, in every way.”
Freitag flagship store, Geroldstrasse 17, CH-8005, Zurich,
Switzerland, +41 (0)43 366 9520; www.freitag.ch
