I’ve worked with dozens of factories in the United States and around the world to create new artifacts at a high quality and a price that works for any budget. In this featured picture I designed and manufactured my own line of USB drives based on aircraft. The one shown is a real American airship that flew in the 1930s.
What Do You Need?
Everyone needs something different. For me I need to make objects that continue the story of my comic series or tell the story of the time period. With that in mind I create objects that fit in with the 1930s-1940s aesthetic. I look for manufacturers who can create in whatever format I need. For most types of products I already have a factory I’ve used several times and understand their working process.
Where Are The Factories?
The best factory for the item you need to produce could be anywhere. What makes them the best could be any number of things. Best price? Best shipping? Best product? Fastest turnaround? We live in a global economy. Cotton grown in the United States is shipped overseas to make cloth, then shipped to another country to make t-shirts, then shipped to the USA to get printed, then sold.
Manufacturing in the U.S.
There are some items that absolutely can’t be made here. Just like there are items that can’t be made in other countries. Sometimes it takes some experience to figure out what can and can’t be made here. Below is an image from my playing card series, the Flight Deck. These are Made in the U.S.A. at the Bicycle playing card factory. I have also made playing cards overseas but Bicycle is the top manufacturer for this kind of product. You can definitely get them a little cheaper but for many reasons, this is a product you probably won’t want to unless it’s strictly a promotional giveaway item.
Using a Combination of Sources
Sometimes the best answer is to produce everywhere. In the above picture the four decks of playing cards were produced at Bicycle Playing Cards in the United States, the Books were manufactured in China, the sticker, coin, and silkscreen print were manufactured in the United States, and the patch was produced overseas as well. The Flight Deck playing card project required designing and combining multiple media types from several production sources and combining them into the final product for the customer and fan.