Bond, Street

Bec Brittain

Looking to refinance

A life-long student of product design, philosophy, and architecture, Bec Brittain always dreamed of opening her own studio. She spent the first part of her career working at some of New York’s preeminent design firms, including WORK Architecture and the Lindsey Edelman Studio, but she had her sights set on something bigger. “Job after job, I always felt something was lacking, ” she says. “Eventually, I realized what it was: I didn’t want to work for someone else. I wanted to see if I could do it on my own.” In the course of her work, she noticed a gap in the premium lighting design space — a natural fit given her diverse set of interests — and decided to go for it. Bec launched her lighting studio in 2011 out of a Brooklyn apartment, and quickly drew the attention of New York’s design community. No one had seen anything quite like Bec’s light sculptures, which were inspired by everything from samurai armor to Persian flat weave rugs. In the words of design blog Sight Unseen, “her lights are the kind of statement-making pieces that stop you dead in your tracks and make you wonder: how on earth does she think of that?” Vogue heralded her work as “Shaping the Future of Contemporary Design.”

Soon enough, Bec’s lights were headlining premier design events, including the International Contemporary Furniture Fair. Making the work featured at the events required significant investment, but Bec knew the exposure to the international design community was invaluable. To finance the materials required for her designs, she put the expense on her personal credit card. As time wore on, she began looking for solutions that would allow her to refinance at a more reasonable interest rate.

“All of this is new to first-time business owners, so having a real person who looks at businesses all day tell me I wasn’t crazy was really heartening.”

How Bond Street Helped

The idea of a new, fairer approach to business financing was immensely appealing to Bec. After filling out the ten-minute online application, Bec was immediately connected with Bond Street's Chief Credit Officer, who discussed her application with her. “All of this is new to first time business owners, so having a real person who looks at businesses all day tell me I wasn’t crazy was really heartening.” She had anticipated weeks of paperwork and waiting, but after a brief discussion about her firm’s financials and plans for the future, Bec received and accepted a $50, 000 loan offer from Bond Street’s team. “At Bond Street there’s this entrepreneurial attitude of ‘let’s figure out how we can get this done’ as opposed to a bank, where it's more ‘if you can conform yourself as much as possible to our standards, we may give you a second look.”

After refinancing her credit cards, Bec is back to drawing up plans for her next round of awe-inspiring lighting designs. “Honestly, I’ve been less stressed, ” she says. “I’ve just had more free time to think about the future as opposed to worrying about the bills.”