DSPTCH®, the brain child of Richard Liu, began in 2010 selling "a durable camera strap for today’s photographer" from his apartment in SF. Fast forward to 2023 and you observe a consumer brand that has gone through numerous product innovations including a line of mil-spec backpacks and bags, a home goods brand called BASE Object, a concept store in SF's Mission district, and collaborations with brands such as Maekan, Descente, 3sixteen, Ghostly, and Engineered Garments.
DSPTCH®'s product and ethos are built around the idea of elevating quality and simplicity, while never being afraid to explore something new.
I had a chance to catch up with Richard Liu recently and ask him some questions about his company and their recent collaboration with Engineered Garments.
How do you approach the ideation and design process for DSPTCH®; where do you pull inspiration from?
The best source for me has always been spending time in urban cities as well as my own travels at the airport or other transit environments, particularly in other countries. People are constantly looking for optimal solutions when carrying their stuff so it's an obstacle that everybody faces and tries to solve. It's always interesting to see all of the different types of solutions out there. That has always been a great inspiration for me to observe as much as I can and then wait for something to strike a chord.
You have some notable collaborations with brands like Maekan, Descente, and Engineered Garments. How do these collaborations form and what do you learn from them?
Each collaboration has its own story about how they came to fruition. But, currently my approach to it is to first find people that I love to work with. I find the process is much more energizing and yields a better product when you're just excited to talk with the other party and throw ideas against the wall together. So these days, it's less about the business case and more about the experience and relationship with the goal that ultimately this makes a more authentic and interesting project for customers to get excited about. Customers can tell when the collaboration has organic energy behind it.
Regarding the formation and growth of DSPTCH®, what has surprised you the most about the journey?
The thing that surprises me most is how little my anticipation to engage the process of design and iteration has waned over the years. I still am as excited as I was in our first years as I am today, 13 years later, to take on a new bag or case or even a little accessory strap. The operations side of things does feel like work a bit at times, but the design side still gets me out of my seat no matter how simple the project is. I spent a few weeks on a new shoulder pad recently and it put a smile on my face for the rest of the day once I got to try the first prototype out. Even small projects like that fuel me and it really hasn't changed over the entire span of the company.
The recent Engineered Garments collab underscores the highly technical fabric choices for DSPTCH® gear (like dyneema or Venom™). What do you like about these fabrics that traditional fabrics like nylon or Cordura don't provide?
It's always a treat to be able to hold something that's been developed for improvement. The technical fabrics provide a whole new world of possibilities with weight, durability, and water repellency. There has been a lot of innovation in that space which inherently gets us all excited to work on development. We try to incorporate the fabric in the ideation of the design so it is more than just a fabric swap. We want to let the properties of a lightweight fabric shine with minimal hardware or other heavier components so we have to design something entirely new to allow that to happen. So new fabrics are a significant part of our process and product development because it gives us a whole new set of parameters to design within.
In the past several years you've explored a retail concept store in addition to your online consumer site. I'd love to hear you talk about that process.
Retail has always been a big part of our journey. Before I even had an idea of starting a brand, I was constantly trying to visit San Francisco independent retail stores because it was like a whole new world of product had been made available to me. Growing up in the suburbs and pre-internet, you really had to just go and find these stores and when you did, you could find a new store of product that you never even knew existed. This is what originally got me involved in the creative and design world so when we had an opportunity to join the SF retail landscape, it was a dream come true.
Did this retail exploration change the work you do at DSPTCH® or your product approach?
I wouldn't say that it directly affects our design approach since we aren't really creating anything specifically for retail, but just seeing our product in different retail environments certainly inspires and motivates.
Whether our own shelf or one across the world, we still follow our original concept and commitment to try to make timeless products that can last a lifetime.
If you have haven't had a chance to explore DSPTCH® yet, then I highly encourager you to check out their site, and follow along with their journey:
I'm constantly inspired by brands that care about craft, community, and designing and building for the long haul.
