The Drop Zone design philosophy is one of balance. Much like a circus performer balancing spinning plates, cups, and saucers on the end of a pool cue, our design team has to balance a multitude of factors when creating a new piece of clothing or gear.

Durability, ease of use, physical weight, expense, versatility, and aesthetics are all factors our designers have to balance.

For example, when chest rigs came into vogue (again) before the second Iraq war. A customer proud of his new acquisition, brought a chest rig in for us to look at. He purchased it from a company in the U.S. It was a work of art. It even had a panel that folded down into a mini-desk for map reading! There were slots, pockets, and doodads all over this thing. The workmanship was superb. Box "x" stitches were used throughout, even for mounting plastic side release buckles. It had a price tag to match too!

A down side, in our view, of this competitor's design philosophy was weight. His chest rig was heavy! When unloaded, it was more than twice the weight of our chest rig. It is our belief that with armor, helmet, communication gear, water etc, the modern soldier has more than enough weight to carry without adding extra pounds to the carrying equipment! Is this designer's philosophy wrong? No, not at all if you want convenience at the penalty of weight. We must admit the "look cool factor" was certainly there. But how cool do you look panting and straining under unnecessary weight?

As our competitors chest rig was sewn and not modular, the customer had to be satisfied with our competitor's interpretation of the ideal chest rig. Our chest rig, being modular, allows the user to select and arrange the pouches to suit his needs. Modularity satisfies the design criteria of versatility. Was our competitor wrong to sew it all together without the ability to disassemble and reassemble? No, not at all, just different.

His catalog has many more chest rigs than ours does, though. Hmmm. . .

In the quest for durability. We use the finest in hardware and textiles. Our competitor also uses the finest in hardware and textiles. He uses double and triple stitching and we use double and triple stitching. He uses an expensive, but beautiful, box "x" stitch to hold a buckle on. We use an inexpensive bar tack.

Wait!

An inexpensive bar tack!? Our designers are still perplexed as to why anyone would use a sewing method to attach webbing that has as much as three times the tensile strength of the buckle its holding in place. It is beautiful to be sure, but when we know the buckle will fail well before the webbing and stitching, we have to wonder why any one would ding the customer with the extra construction expense? Our bar tack is still stronger than the buckle, yet cheaper to produce than the Box "x".

It's a matter of balance. Strength vs. expense vs. aesthetics.
Could it be aesthetics are driving our competitor's design philosophy?
Another concern. What happens when pockets wear out from the sharp corners metal magazines? Do you throw our competitor's chest rig out? Ours, you just replace the pocket!

Different manufactures have different design philosophies. It's not that one guy is right and the other is wrong (Excluding the knock off kings that take others designs to the third world to get built. Their philosophy seems to be one of maximum profit with minimum talent.). The philosophies are different. It is up to the customer to determine which philosophy suits his needs.

The customer must think and analyze his needs very carefully, as it is extremely easy to get caught up in the zippy marketing of glossy advertisements, color catalogs, flashy websites and self aggrandizing claims of incredible daring do.

As we as at Drop Zone seek balance in design. The customer must also seek balance. He must balance his desires with his needs, with his budget. To achieve this balance the customer must realistically analyze, and sometimes guess, all the potential characteristics of the environments he can imagine the products being used in. A tough task indeed and not far removed from the balancing act we strive to achieve at Drop Zone. Before purchasing any one's offerings, the tough questions of balance must be asked.

Are Drop Zone products the strongest? No, but they're not weak either.
Are Drop Zone products the most expensive? Not by a long shot, but they're not cheap either.
Are Drop Zone products versatile? Definitely!
Are Drop Zone products easy to use? Absolutely.
Are Drop Zone products aesthetically pleasing? . . . . While they're not beautiful, you certainly wouldn't be embarrassed to show your friends or even take them home to mom. After all, like life, to achieve balance, there is always a little compromise.