Making Hardware Beautiful Again
If you’ve ever stood in front of a newly painted front door and felt let down by the boring door knocker options out there — same. That exact moment is where Hera Ray began.
Back in 2016, we were fitting a new front door (not a cheap project, as anyone who's done it knows) and went looking for door furniture that felt… well, special. But all we could find were plain, uninspired knockers and letterboxes — the same styles everywhere, usually made with poor materials. Everything felt mass-produced and forgettable.
We couldn’t stop thinking: why does home hardware — something you touch every day — have to be so bland?
With a background in fashion design I knew the impact great design could have — not just how it looks, but how it makes you feel. It was clear that while other areas of the home had embraced creativity, hardware had been left behind. It felt like an entire category stuck in the past — generic shapes, cheap finishes, no story, characterless...
We started Hera Ray to change that — to bring design thinking, character, and real quality into the world of hardware.
It Started With a Frog
Our very first design was what we now call the Amphibia Frog Knocker, little did we know we had started with everything brass casting rules says don't do! I honestly believe that naivety was our super power in the early days, we designed first and figured out the casting techniques later (not the usual way round) I'm sure at this point our wonderful foundry team were wishing they hadn't said yes to working with us!
It took us years to find the technique we would eventually use to cast the beautiful Frog and still to this day he is our most complicated piece produced just outside Birmingham UK using an age old technique called Wax Casting.
Now you can have a little laugh...this was our first ever cast (terrible we know)
and we couldn't have been closer to packing it all in, hoisting the white flag and realising why hardware products were a touch more simplistic. But we did get there and now Amphibia has been one of our most popular knockers since his launch.
Here he is looking a touch more refined!
Knock Knock, Who’s There? Our First product Launch
Despite having the idea for the business in 2016 it took us another 5 years to get started. Anyone with young children, corporate jobs and a mortgage will understand the small dose of fear you experience when you think about quitting jobs and starting a business!
Like so many, it was the covid period that made us re-assess and eventually gave us the final push to take the leap.
When we officially launched in April 2021, we had just three products — and the Knock Knock Door Knocker was one of them. It was inspired by Victorian design with its own unique typography, full of character and design whilst remaining simple and elegant, and unlike the Frog at this point we were able to actually cast it, which helped!
It set the tone for everything we’ve done since: Hardware that’s both functional and beautiful.
The Humble Bootjack
Fast-forward to today and one of our most-loved pieces isn’t a door knocker at all — it’s a Bootjack. We saw it as the perfect challenge: something practical, somewhat forgotten, but it absolutely serves a purpose. So we asked ourselves: can we take this functional tool and turn it into something people are proud to have in their home?
We are delighted to confidently say YES, the Butterfly Bootjack was our first piece of hardware that wasn't attached to a door of some-kind and although we have more door knockers planned we will also be taking our ethos of design and purpose into other areas of the home.
Why We Do This
We design everything with a simple philosophy: if you’re going to touch it every day, it should bring you joy...and maybe the odd compliment.
We believe functional items deserve just as much attention as decorative ones. We try to bring a fresh, considered, and often more feminine perspective to a space that has long been dominated by the purely practical. Using 100% recycled brass, we create objects that not only work beautifully, but also last a lifetime and bring joy to the everyday...and who knows maybe even passed down as family heirlooms.
If you're new here, welcome. And if you’ve been with us since that very first Knock — thank you. We’re just getting started.
Rebecca