We didn’t expect that day to be such a turning point. But it certainly was. On December 8, we had a delicious ramen night (thanks Alberto) where we celebrated the launch of Bendito Mockup: a new take on mockups through artistic and experimental photography. We were celebrating that we, a small studio from Southern Spain, were able to come up with 107 resources that a designer might find convincing. Were those mockups as extraordinary as we ambitioned? Not exactly. But hey, the job was done (finishing things is such an underrated success) and it paved the way for the brand we wanted to become.
Two hours after I took those pictures, the building in which Álvaro and I lived caught fire (lessons learned: we don’t recommend you to live next to people affected by Diogenes syndrome). As we watched the firefighters put out the fire (fortunately, no one was hurt), our e-commerce was experiencing its first hour online. The scene was quite pathetic but there was something beautiful and cheesy about it: Álvaro and I, hugging our laptops on the street, knew that fire in our building represented the end of a cycle. To make things clearer: he and I have been dating for seven years, and together we founded Al Alimón, our design studio. Last year Alberto (Álvaro’s sibling), moved from wild Berlin to join us in Granada. With him on board, Bendito Mockup started taking shape.
What happened the day after the fire? We shared the mockups with some friends, who helped us spread the word about Bendito. They certainly did. But the response we had was beyond the expected. In the following weeks, we saw some of our most respected designers using the resources we created here, in our city. That gave us some precious information about our mvp: there was an alignment between what we had in mind and the demands of creatives worldwide. So cheers to that.
Then we moved to a new place, onboarded new projects at the studio, faced the challenges of Bendito Mockup (an e-commerce is a sweet box of surprises), tried to become a ninja on Facebook ads… (I also moved to Belgium for 3 months, and finaaally finished my PhD). To be frank, these last months have felt like trying to hit a moving target. But it was fun. It forced us to define fast who we wanted to become.
Where are we now? Honestly, we are just doubling down on what made us create Bendito Mockup. We are in love with the idea of bridging the gap between art and design providing art directions that have never been seen in the world of mockups. Besides creating our own collections, collaborating with artists is a powerful tool to achieve that. So much can be done in that sense, progressively moving away from the neutral aesthetic paradigm to a completely new one, guided by the wonders of art and beauty. So fire made its job and renovated us. K1NK1 collection is the result of that process, and the collaboration with photographer Toni Kuraga couldn’t be a better fresh start.
