Many years ago, right as we were beginning our journey as Mixing Spirits, I caught Kathy Lee and Hoda’s favorite things during the 4th hour of the Today Show. They were featuring the beautiful work of an artist named Sherri that incorporated legible braille. Her website shares a little about how she developed her braille designs. “One of the pieces I am most proud of is my braille series . This was completely inspired by my daughter she is blind. Many times she would sit by my side as I painted and ask many questions what am I painting? What color? Is it a tree? What are the shapes? so for the most part I would do my best to describe it to her. Which got me to thinking why does art have to be purely visual. I work with texture and shapes so much everyday how about concentrating more on how the piece feels.”
As I considered our new “sand carving” process (we were still using the Rubbermaid tub my husband fashioned into a blast cabinet), I wondered if we could create enough texture for legible braille. The answer was yes!
In the beginning stages of creating braille glassware I had no idea what I was doing. The first glasses were created using a free braille font from the internet, it mimicked another design we had at the time. I’m sure those that read braille are shaking your heads at using a free font, there were so many technical errors. If you can read braille by sight you’ll notice there’s no capital “I” in “I love you”, while it could have been a hipster style choice it was really just ignorance. I was really excited to use this new medium, but didn’t know where to begin researching how to do it properly.
In addition to using a horrific font that often spelled things incorrectly, the letters were etched. This made letters that were depressed into the glass rather than raised and they were much more difficult to read.
Over the last 5.5 years it’s been such an honor to work with you to improve our process, creating very unique glassware that allows you to truly enjoy the gifts. We’ve made bridal party glasses, decanter sets, corporate gifts, best friend glasses and so much more.
The biggest improvement in our braille glassware has been a complete redesign in our etching process. These designs now have an etched shape behind the braille, makes the braille raised and much more legible.
Our customers have provided amazing translation tools that allow for accurate braille translation, and we have used that information to begin learning braille ourselves.
If you have a fun project, a great gift idea, or suggestions for improving the braille line of glassware please reach out, we love working with you to create your unique gifts
We are working to improve our website functionality for visually impaired purchases, please let us know what can help with that as well! If you need help with ordering please feel free to call 586-883-5067 or email. We can absolutely assist with anything you need.