A few years ago I came across a Polish handbag company thanks to a one-hour interview with the owner. I could barely read or speak the language at the time and had no luck with English captions but something about what she was building and how she carried herself spoke to me. I replayed it again and again, translating sections at a time over several days.
Handbags aren’t really what they’re selling. It’s not a handbag that takes up space on the homepage, but a story about traditional Polish crafts.
Handmade, heirloom pieces are elevated alongside handbags and leather goods in a Heritage section: delicate bobbin-lace works from Bobowa, embroidered scarves from Wilanów, amber jewellery from Kurpie, and hand-woven bags from the Podlasie region, each with its own story.
As an Eastern European woman, this spoke to me without any need for words. These are skills that women like my grandmother and great-grandmother handed down from generation to generation: love and devotion made manifest; on good days referred to as women’s work, on others lumped together as domestic industry. They sewed, knitted, and embroidered, and pieces were handed down to me to wear and keep. Having now lived in Poland long enough, I know many people’s babcias and village koło gospodyń [rural women’s association] dabbled in these crafts, but these traditions are almost extinct today.
Made by people who care
While lingering on the Heritage section, I noticed one more surprise: the product titles are written in hand-drawn letters.
Every word was drawn by hand, scanned, and uploaded as an image. Next to them are equally delicate product shots for items made by specific, named women: headscarves by embroiderer Marianna Król, a lace apron with a horse-and-chestnut pattern by Ms. Ewa Szpila, a lace collar with a daisies pattern by Ms. Jadwiga Śliwa, a hand-woven bag by Ms. Lucyna Kędzierska, and others.
When I showed my partner the website, his reaction was: “You can see this was made by people who care.” We didn’t know about the hand lettering at the time, only the effect it had on us.
The path of most resistance
Most visitors might never notice. A font would have been simpler to set and easier to change. An image is heavier and less flexible with responsive designs, and it must be redrawn if a word changes. A calligrapher needs to be on call for every new addition. Someone knew this, weighed the options, and chose handwritten letters anyway. But for those of us who do notice, it was a much-needed reminder that care is visible, even on a screen.
Seeing the calligraphy brought back a flood of memories from a project in a past life. We were building a website for a bespoke British shirt manufacturer with royal warrants to its name. We witnessed their fitting process up close, watched how meticulously they crafted each shirt, and knew we had to include the iconic tailor’s scissors on the site. When designing their bespoke shirt-making section, we struggled to find suitable illustrations, so of course my colleague Spencer drew all the shirt, collar, and scissors illustrations by hand. They are still there today, over a decade later.
Hand-written letters, just like the scissors illustrations or hand-painted shop signs may possibly be the least efficient way to do things in business. But to the right people they’re a sign about who, and what is inside. Care begets care.
The lace works each took around sixty or seventy hours of work. The hand-woven bags are only available as preorders. The least a website can do is put in a similar amount of time and effort to present them.
No mere accidents
I’ve been on many websites since and quickly forgotten about them, but I haven’t forgotten the intent behind this one. A real person with taste on the other side of the screen decided things have to be done this way and didn’t default to the status quo or industry-standard practice.
Their decision to use handwritten letters confirmed to us that this is the level of care worth striving for. The website could have been assembled in an afternoon from free templates and parts that are free and good enough, but it wasn’t.
Everything still loads quickly and works on a phone. Maybe the images settle into place a fraction later than text would. Does anyone really mind or notice? The handwritten letters aren’t everywhere. No one abandoned modern tools, but they don’t have to make every choice for you.
Oh, to have been a fly on the wall at that meeting. I want to believe whoever agreed to it wasn’t there to ask why the letters weren’t simply typed or rush the calligrapher on their fifth attempt. When we drew our scissors by hand, nobody was thinking about how much we’d go over the timesheets. We felt it was right, had fun while doing it, and the client saw it and agreed. Maybe the same happened here and thew taste-maker was just there to make sure: Does this best represent what we’re doing? Does it feel like us?
That’s why these pages, products, and letters feel like they have a soul and could not belong to anyone else.
This may not sound like much to ask for, but it’s increasingly rare to see these days.