With the emergence of companies like Shwood, SOLO Eyewear, and others, it’s no secret that handcrafted wood eyewear is a trend with some staying power. While the popular handmade look harkens back to the simpler days of low-tech skilled craftsmanship, a new eyewear brand combines this handcraftsmanship with the digital age

Creator, Tom Fallon has taken to Kickstarter to fund his brand of custom handmade sunglasses, Tommy Owens Eyewear. The thing that sets Tommy Owens apart from other manufacturers jumping on the wooden eyewear bandwagon is the “custom” aspect. Through the Tommy Owens website, customers will be able to fully customize their own wooden shades. Once the designs are created, customers are encouraged to share them on the major social media outlets where friends and followers can vote on the designs they like the best.

Customers will also be able to feel good about purchasing a pair of custom Tommy Owens, as the company plans to devote time and energy to spreading the importance of music and arts in schools “while mentoring underserved grade-level students through internships and mentoring programs.”

The company is currently attempting to raise $16,000 through Kickstarter to cover the costs of materials and other expenses for its Fall/Resort 2012 launch. Click here if you want help fund Tommy Owens or visit the company Facebook page for more info.

In this edition of our blog series, “Social Media in the Eye Care Industry,” Sam Afetian, the Social Media Manager at SOLO Eyewear, answers some of our questions. A few months back we featured SOLO Eyewear in a blog post highlighting its unique and inspiring mission to donate a pair of prescription glasses or provide cataract surgery to someone in need for every pair glasses it sells. Using social media, SOLO has done a great job communicating their mission and getting people excited about making a difference in the lives of the less fortunate.

NVG: What is the overall focus of your social media strategy?

SE: Well, that’s really a complex question. First, of course, our strategy in using various platforms is to engage with SOLO Eyewear fans and potential fans about our cause and our mission. 80% of the world’s blindness is preventable and in order to make a dent in that statistic, we need people to take an active role in purchasing a pair of SOLOs (For each pair sold we donate a pair of prescription glasses or cataract surgery to someone in need).

The second part of our strategy is to create a community of people who want to do good in the world. From the very beginning, we knew that we wanted a brand that inspired people to go out and do amazing things. We want SOLO fans to have a place to go in order to converse with like-minded individuals. A single person can make a huge difference in the world and we really want to convey this idea in everything we do, especially amongst our social networks.

NVG: Which social media channels work best for your company and why? 

SE: Thus far Facebook has been the most effective channel for us in terms of garnering community interaction. Facebook is a great tool for two-way communication between brands and fans, and it has truly proven to be our little hub of SOLO action. We have an incredible creative director, Dana Holliday, who happens to be a stellar graphic designer. One of the reasons Facebook has been so effective for us is because she has provided great visual content for our wall. Now that Facebook pages have Timeline, it is crucial to provide a visual story for fans. Dana does amazing work in this arena.

NVG: How has social media helped increase participation in the “SOLO Movement” and what kind of public responses have you received?

SE: People have been so receptive of SOLO’s cause and have willingly joined our movement after understanding what it’s about. Youtube has been a great platform for us to tell our story through video and show the world why we’re doing this and to communicate that everyone can make a difference in the world.

A great example of participation in the SOLO Movement was our Kickstarter campaign to raise money for our summer collection. Fans pulled together and rallied for us, posting on Facebook walls and tweeting about the campaign. We ended up raising over $30,000 all because of the generosity and enthusiasm of our incredible fans.

NVG: It seems like you have positioned your brand somewhere in the middle between fashion and charity. How have you been able to use social media in order to convey both the humanitarian and the fashionable aspects of your company? Does one outweigh the other in your brand messaging?

SE: The idea for SOLO started when Jenny Amaranenni, our co-founder, discovered that 80% of blindness is preventable and that nearly 1 billion people cannot afford eye care. She has poor vision and has a background in working with non-profits. So SOLO Eyewear started as a solution to help end preventable blindness.

What we try to convey in brand messaging is that although these glasses are undeniably good looking, they also change someone’s life forever. Our fans know that the level of coolness SOLOs bring them is multiplied by the fact that their purchase gave someone the gift of sight.

NVG: What overall value does social media bring to your company?

SE: Social media has allowed us to build a community around the SOLO brand. We have absolutely incredible fans–social media has brought them around the brand and has allowed us to grow with the people that matter the most: Our customers.

NVG: Have you tried any other innovative form of advertising like guerrilla marketing or anything along those lines?  

SE: A group of volunteers took our cause to the streets to let people know that 80% of the world’s blindness is preventable. They stood on street corners blindfolded to represent the people who have lost their eyesight because they couldn’t afford eye care. Check it out here.

NVG: Do you have any plans to utilize certain platforms more in the future/Are there any upcoming campaign ideas in the works?  

SE: We have a few things in the works. Anyone interested in finding out what it is should like our Facebook page to find out! Lots of great things coming this fall.

Samantha Afetian is the Social Media Manager of SOLO Eyewear. You can chat with her on Twitter at @SamAfetian. 

Contact Noble Vision Group

Drivewear sunglasses are designed to meet the needs of drivers. Unlike ordinary glasses or sunglasses, Drivewear sunglasses can adjust the amount of eye shading they provide according to the brightness of the weather conditions. This means that you are never stuck squinting into the sun or left temporarily blinded by a sudden drop in light levels. This increased visibility offers enormous safety benefits for you as the driver, any passengers that are in the car with you, and other drivers on the road, as it means that you are less likely to end up in an accident.

Driving offers a particular set of challenges for both human eyes and artificial eyewear. Wet roads produce glare when the sun shines on them, and other cars can reflect sudden flashes of light into a driver’s eyes. These problems can be uncomfortable or even dangerous if the driver reacts by shutting his eyes or looking away. And of course the whole point of driving is to travel large distances quickly, which means that during one journey you could experience a wide range of weather conditions, from bright and sunny to overcast or even gloomy. Fortunately, with Drivewear sunglasses, you are prepared for all eventualities. You no longer have to remember to pack two or three different pairs of glasses: just remember to put on your Drivewear glasses before you hit the road.

Drivewear sunglasses adjust automatically according to how much light falls on them. In bright light, they become darker to protect your eyes. When a cloud comes overhead, the pigmentation in the lenses quickly fades away so that you are able to see where you are going. In addition, they use polarizing technology to minimize glare. Polarizing filters in the lenses block out light that has been reflected from shiny surfaces, such as other cars or water on the road, while still letting through ambient light. When you are driving, you don’t have time to change between different pairs of glasses every time the light level outside changes. With Drivewear sunglasses, you can keep your eyes on the road at all times, while letting your glasses handle the ever-changing light conditions.

Contact Noble Vision Group

In a post from a few months back, we told you about the tech/social media/eyewear startup, ZionEyez. The Eyez glasses, available this summer, will be able to record 2-3 hours of high-definition POV video, which users can share on their favorite social media channels or stream live through video sharing websites.

A new startup, however, may be giving ZionEyez some competition on the video glasses front. Vergence Labs, a young startup working with the assistance of Stanford’s startup accelerator, StartX, recently began a Kickstarter campaign attempting to raise $50,000 to develop their own video sharing glasses.

While the product is still in the prototype stage, far behind ZionEyez in development, Vergence will offer some features that the Eyez glasses do not. Aside from their stylistic differences, Vergence’s Epiphany Eyewear, will allow users to turn their specs from reading glasses to sunglasses with the touch of a button. Using “magic glass” technology (chromatic shifting conductive glass), sometimes used for doors and windows in trendy restaurants and offices, Vergence’s glasses will have an instant on/off sunglass feature.

An embedded sensor in the glasses will also record the user’s biometric data synchronized with the video. Users can then share not only their first-person experience of an event, but also data like their pulse, body temperature, blood pressure, calories burned, and possibly brain signals further into the future.

Vergence is also working on an “immersive visor display… allowing you to see 3D Stereo Films, 3D virtual worlds, and 3D first person point of view videos as captured from other people’s points of view.” To accompany the visor, Vergence is developing eye tracking “Think-to-Click” technology and motion sensing technology that will allow users to navigate the 3D worlds within the visor simply through looking at certain spots or making certain gestures.

It will be very interesting to see how society and the IT sector respond to this type of technology when it is fully available to the public. Will ZionEyez and Vergence Labs battle for supremacy in the high tech eyewear market, or will the recently unveiled concept for Google Glasses become a reality and overshadow both of these companies?

Regardless of which company wins out, one thing is for certain—wearable computer technology is the wave of the future, which is beginning to look stranger than we ever could have imagined.

Contact Noble Vision Group