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Quality over quantity.
ABOUT US
The Design Chess Company is a family business located in Finland, Europe. We opened our doors in 2017 after several years of building connections with the best chess manufacturers across the world.
We are a retailer specializing in high-quality and luxury wooden chess pieces and boards. Our principles are:
- Uncompromising quality
- Personal service
- Responsibility
- Safe buying
- Customer satisfaction
PHILOSOPHY
”The details are not the details. They make the design.” – Charles Eames
The details form when ancestral tradition meets candid and uncompromising design and exceptional handcrafting skills. The details are made by somebody – not by anonymous factories and their automated machinery. The details have their way, their time and their place of manufacture.
For us at Design Chess, the detailed beauty of every smallest thing is the reason we exist. The details are everything to us; in designing, in the different phases of manufacturing, in the colours and in the finishing of the surfaces. We want to make a more beautiful world. We love what we sell.
A luxury chess set is more than a mere product. It is the crown jewel of furniture, an heirloom through the generations. It is an experience to observe one, to hold one. Yet, it never forgets its original function as a game. A designer product is successful only when it works perfectly for its original purpose.
We are proud of the fact that every one of our chess pieces is made by hand from start to finish. The Knight that you buy from us has been in the hands of an artisan in Amritsar for at least one working day, and to be able to make four identical ones is nothing short of a supernatural skill.
While his Indian colleague is finishing the chess pieces, a Florentine artisan in Italy – specialised in chess boards – has chosen the best-matching wood textures for the squares and is now inlaying them by hand. All this is done through intuition, based on decades of experience and savoir-faire to which no robot can come close to replicating.
We bow to traditions while looking to the future – tradition need not be the opposite of contemporary. Design is about bringing together exceptional handcrafting skill and timeless elegance.
Using the same dedication and love with which we at Design Chess have chosen our products and partners, we have also chosen how we serve you. You can count on us to work to fulfill your wishes and answer your questions. While the apex of our service is the tailor-made chess pieces, with their personal design service, rest assured that our replies to the smallest of questions receive the same friendly and helpful level of attention from us.
We want to be sure of your satisfaction in the long run. That is reflected in our product warranty which is superior when compared to our competitors.
Luxury is just a word. We give it meaning.
OUR VALUES
We at Design Chess believe in quality over quantity. Our basis is sustainability, environmental respect, ethical working practises, and valuing handmade crafts and unique pieces over mass-produced products.
Our product manufacturers in India, Italy and Spain share our values and quality requirements. They each have a low turnover rate of workers and prioritize the transmission of tradition and skill from generation to generation. Taking good care of the workers and their well-being is a priority for us and all our partner manufacturers.
Design Chess collaborates with only a few carefully selected partners to ensure a close and direct bond between us and them. The selection process of the partners has involved months of travelling to different continents and hours of discussions with them. For us, it’s important to know our manufacturers and workers personally and thoroughly.
The finest materials and the best craftsmanship using ethical working practices come at a price. We choose our partners and their products solely by their quality, not their price. That’s why our products are not bargain-priced.
SOCIAL VALUES
- We ensure that workers’ working conditions are good according to the law, and they receive fair pay for their work.
- We ensure that no child or forced labour is ever used.
ENVIRONMENTAL VALUES
- We don’t sell products made from woods or other materials classified as endangered.
- We don’t sell products that include parts made from animals, e.g. camel bone.
- In our office, we minimize paper usage and avoid printing whenever possible.
