Designing a Product That Never Launched

This year, the plan was to launch Katsillustration homeware. A few months ago, I begun the process of researching and designing my first product, tea towels.

I researched fabrics, sizes, printing methods, absorbency, packaging, suppliers, minimum orders — all the very glamorous behind-the-scenes things that nobody really talks about when they picture running a creative business.

I spent months designing them too.

I wanted them to feel like an extension of my prints and paper products but translated into the kitchen — bright, playful and full of personality. The kind of everyday objects that quietly brighten a room and make practical spaces feel a bit more joyful, colourful and lived in. Slightly chaotic in the best way, and exactly the kind of thing I’d want in my own home.

I had planned to launch them in May.

And then, while chasing up my samples, I got an automatic email reply saying the company had gone into administration.

Not a phone call.
Not a conversation.
Just an out of office style message informing me that somewhere along the line, my tea towels — or at least the samples — had become trapped in limbo.

Which means there is currently a jiffy bag floating around somewhere containing months of work and several tiny pieces of my sanity.

Honestly, the whole thing felt strangely surreal.

One of the hardest things about being a designer or illustrator is that people mostly see the finished outcomes. The launch photos. The products that worked. The polished version that made it onto the website.

What they don’t always see are the ideas that quietly disappear halfway through. The projects that almost happened. The time spent researching something that never arrives. The excitement that suddenly has nowhere to go.

And weirdly, the disappointment isn’t really about the tea towels themselves. It’s about momentum, excitement and the feeling of expanding into something new. Seeing my work exist in a different part of people’s homes and lives.

After the initial disappointment wore off, I started thinking more about why I wanted to move into homeware in the first place. I’ve been noticing this shift towards joyful maximalism and colour confidence lately — people wanting homes that feel more expressive, personal and full of character again. Less perfection, more personality. And I think that’s what excited me most: the idea of creating colourful everyday objects that quietly brighten ordinary moments, whether that’s a tea towel hanging in the kitchen, a playful print near the kettle or stationery on a desk making admin feel slightly less painful. Small things, really. But small things add up.

So now I feel like I’m standing at a bit of a crossroads creatively.

Do I persist with homeware and find a new supplier?
Do I take this as a sign to try a completely different direction?
Paper party goods? Tableware? Something else entirely?

I honestly don’t know yet.

Maybe that uncertainty is part of running a creative business too. Not every project arrives in a perfectly straight line. Some disappear into administrative black holes. Some come back better. Some quietly redirect you somewhere you weren’t expecting to go.

For now, I think I’m trying to see this less as a failure and more as one of those strange behind-the-scenes chapters that eventually become part of the story.

Although I would still really like my samples back.

So if anyone spots a lonely jiffy bag full of colourful tea towels wandering the country unsupervised, please let me know.

Also, I’d really love this next chapter to grow in a direction people genuinely connect with. So if there’s something you’d love to see from Katsillustration in future, tell me in the comments below.