There’s a small company in a town in Wales that makes jeans. And the ‘grand master’ who oversees the making of your pair of jeans signs her name on the inside of them.

Putting our name to something you created communicates two things – pride and responsibility. And not many of us do it. Sometimes we can’t due to strange organisational policies, but often we are too fearful to do it. We want the status that comes with it, but we don’t want the responsibility when things go wrong.

Responsibility. Ownership. Pride in our work. We need more of that in our world today. And yes things will go wrong, life is like that.

Putting our name to our work drives us to do better work. Not perfect, just better. Interestingly, people aren’t putting their name to cheap clothes or other items that don’t last. We tend to only want to sign our name if we think it is quality. Over at Hiut they also provide free repairs for life. That’s something that’s rare, but it incentivises improving quality and learning from mistakes.

Perhaps it is time for us to put our name on our work again. Perhaps it’s time to be proud again.

Photo by Hiut Denim