If you found yourself nodding when you read Martha Stewart’s take on DIY, you’ll probably agree with these reasons on why it’s better to design it yourself instead of picking it off the retail shelf and buying it. Don’t resist though, if you have more leave me a comment.

So, what are the top ten reasons it’s better to design things yourself?

1. Solves your own problems. Need something cool looking yet functional but only about yay high? Whatever you requirements are, you can fulfill them.

2. Reflects your personality, style and charm. It’s too hard to leave it to others to design to your style. Do they know you that well?!

3. Exercises your brain cells. Challenges your creativity and problem-solving skills. Enriches your knowledge on design theory and trends, sustainable materials, the ins and outs of vector editor software, and whatever else you encounter along the way.

4. It’ll make you and your family proud. One early beta user said that after he built his table, his wife liked him more!

5. It’s just cool. Period.

6. Brings “ownership” and “my stuff” to a deeper level.

7. It’ll impress the hell out of your friends, their friends, your coworkers and potential girlfriends/boyfriends.

8. The one-of-a-kind quality of it makes it even more valuable if you ever want to sell it! (You could always do limited editions too). No doubt more valued than mass manufactured products.

9. If you don’t want to sell it, your one-of-a-kind creation could be a legacy/heirloom to pass down the family for future generations.

10. You could be the next Le Corbusier if your designs take off!

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We realize that many of you who are interested in designing custom-made items through Ponoko may not necessarily be experienced designers, or well versed in graphics software. In fact, it may scare off a few - but it really shouldn’t. As we’ve recently completed our first round of closed beta testing, there were quite a few non-technically inclined users - absolute beginners, to say the least with vector art software packages. They were able to produce some very unique and personalized products.

So, if you’re keen to create and design, here is a brief guide to the basics of graphic software that you’ll need to draw up your designs. While this is by no means a completely comprehensive guide, it’s a good start. I’ve included links to some other more substantial and detailed reviews of the standard graphics software out there.

Vector Program. What is it? Software program that allows you to draw and edit technical drawings, generating EPS files which is particularly important for Ponoko users as EPS files are needed to use the system.

Where can you find them? There are industry standard shrink-wrapped graphics suites you purchase with all sorts of bells and whistles to free, open-source programs you can find online.

Now, as I mentioned for your use with Ponoko, you’ll be able to use any vector program (packaged, online, licensed or open-source) that can generate an EPS file to upload onto our platform. The following is a list of some of the more popular vector editor programs that we’re familiar with:

CorelDRAW: CNet’s review gave CorelDraw Graphics Suite 3X an 8 out of 10, with the bottom line being: “a powerful and feature-rich bundle appropriate for home, business, and professional graphics”.

Adobe Illustrator: The review on this industry standard is that it’s the top of the line graphics program. Check About.com’s Adobe Illustrator Tutorials for Basics and Tools for a list of free online tutorials to help users.

Macromedia FreeHand/Adobe FreeHand MX: As of May 2007, Adobe is no longer continuing development for FreeHand. But for those who continue to use or have access to Freehand, user resources for tutorials, downloads, tips and help can be found here at About.com.

Inkscape: A free Linux based vector program was given 5 out of 5 and “Excellent” from Softpedia.com’s review.

Q-Cad: A multiplatform 2D CAD program that can be downloaded from download.com

Xara Xtreme: From About.com:

Xara Xtreme is a top-notch graphics tool, no matter what your level of graphics experience. With its amazing speed, small size, reasonable system requirements, moderate price, and powerful feature set, it’s hard to go wrong with Xara Xtreme. Although it’s currently only for Windows, Xara has announced plans to make Xtreme open source and to develop Macintosh and Linux versions.

Aviary (Raven Vector Editor): Yet to be released, but will be coming soon this year from Aviary (see earlier post). This free online tool is part of a design platform consisting of 13 other tools that can work together. To get updates on when these tools will be released check their blog.

Google Sketchup: This is pretty easy to use if you’ve never worked with 3D modelling before. Good for modeling such as woodworking projects. Google provides a lot of support through their Sketchup blog, with tutorial videos and podcasts available from Go-2-School. There’s a free version you can download as well as a pro version for $495.

UPDATE: The free version of Sketchup will NOT export .EPS format.

References and Reviews to check out:

Wikipedia “Comparison of vector graphics editors”

Designer-info.com: Vector Drawing

About.com: Vector Drawing Basics - Bezier Curves and Paths:

Wikipedia: “List of Vector Graphics Editors”

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ABC News: Organ Printing Could Drastically Change Medicine

This may seem a bit of a stretch on topics for a mostly design/maker blog, but the advances and breadth of rapid prototyping are really astounding. I know some people are trying to get their heads around the idea of printing 3D objects. Although rapid prototyping has been around for 20 years or so in the manufacturing industry, it’s still sitting just on the fringe of mainstream and personal use (see previous post on early adopters in small businesses). But forget that for a moment and try to get your head around this: Organ Printing. Bio-Engineering. Researchers are able to print out living human tissue with the goal of being able to print live organs for transplants to save people. Instead of a laser-jet ink cartridge and paper in the paper tray, they have a cartridge filled with cells and a crosslinker and a petri dish waiting underneath. They’re not there yet, but in Japan, researchers from the University of Tokyo and bio-tech firm (Next 21) are using 3D printers to print out bones made out of a strong yet lightweight plastic (not Adamantium as pondered in Gizmodo) for facial bone replacement.

Doesn’t it just amaze you how far our technology has gone and where it’ll be? How much of an impact will it have in our everyday lives? If digital manufacturing can drastically change medicine and how we heal ourselves, surely it’ll be a central part of our lives on how we get other things. Personal products to use and consume. Food. Shelter. Put in perspective, these things don’t seem as far-fetched now as printing live organs. And that’s not science fiction. It’s reality.

via ABC news and Gizmodo

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CNNMoney.com: What works: 3D Printing for the Rest of Us

I like the quote from Brian Klock - a motorcycle customizer in South Dakota, who as an early adopter shelled out $60K last year for a Stratasys Prodigy 3D printer: “3D doesn’t have to be for stealth bombers. It can be for something as simple as motorcycles.”

Well, making motorcycles is still fairly difficult for lots of people, but the idea is: 3D can be simple and used by more of us (rather than large manufacturers). For a small business owner, he really must have had a lot of faith in rapid prototyping to have an impact on his business. Good on him for seeing the value and opportunity in taking that “risk” of investing in the technology. Apparently his investment has already paid for itself in the past year with his business growing over 150%.

Another guy dumped his telecommunications day job and started up an architectural model firm with his personal $50K investment in a Z Spectrum 510 printer. His belief in the future of 3D printers are so strong that he’ll ride it from selling architectural models to becoming a 3D “Kinkos”.

It’s exciting to see the growth of 3D printers in smaller businesses. Prices are getting more affordable - you can tell with the $60K Klock paid last year to those selling now for around 20K - 30K. 3D Systems’ V Compact Flash which when released this year is supposed to retail for about 10K. With the progress being made by the DIY fabbers like Fab@home and Reprap, who knows how many more of “the masses” (small businesses, groups and personal users) out there will be using 3D printers. And for a wider range of products and purposes.

Or course this opens up some pretty scary situations for traditional manufacturers within the next 20 years. I believe there is going to be a complete turn around from the mass manufacturing model we have now, utilizing cheap labor resources, to a return to where nearly all products are manufactured locally, where technology replaces the labor, and mass customization replaces mass production. There are several major factors that are going to drive this change: consumer awareness of the environmental impact of product creation, wealthy consumer demand for “individualization”, and the massive growth of the middle class in countries like India and China.

How this will play out ultimately is very hard to know but the room for creativity is one of the factors that makes it so interesting in the near term. Where does Ponoko fit into all this? We’ve already discovered some pretty neat things just from the research and testing we’ve been doing over the last year. Most importantly, it’s a massive mind shift to go from buying to making; and from buying mass produced to moving to individualization. 3D Printers are just one factor in that move. But to paraphrase Malcolm Gladwell in “The Tipping Point“, in the early stages the progress looks very slow, but when it hits that Tipping Point it suddenly seems like it’s everywhere. The community involved with Ponoko is going to be a real part of this so if you’ve already signed up, I’m looking forward to seeing what you do, and if you haven’t, then don’t miss out.

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(photo from core.77.com)

You could say that great skaters like Tony Hawk and Mark Gonzales are really artists who create incredible jumps and spins, and I’d totally agree. But these artists who laser-cut their designs into these boards are the real deal.

Australian skateboard magazine Refill launched an exhibition of laser-cut designed skateboards calling it Seven - for the seven layers of ply that make the skateboard deck. Eighty artists were invited to create their designs, each making 50 limited editions for sale. Their first exhibit kicked off in March in Australia, hitting New York, Los Angeles followed by a European tour.

From Generator.x:

In terms of laser cutting used as an image medium, Refill Seven is one of the most interesting examples to date. Skate and surf culture has always been fond of customization, so laser engraving skateboards makes perfect sense. Most of the pieces are in the baroque style popular with skaters, with only a few examples of abstract work. There doesn’t seem to be any computational pieces, so in that sense the uniquely digital nature of the technology has been passed over.

Technically, the project is very advanced. A rotating clamp was used to ensure smooth engraving even in non-flat areas. For obvious reasons laser cutting is oriented towards lines, but here filled areas are smoothly drawn. According to Wired Magazine a resolution of 1200 DPI was achieved, which is far beyond most current laser cutting.

I’m not a skater, but I would definitely love to see one of these beauties hanging up on my wall.

For more pix check out their flickr page.

via Core 77 and Generator.x

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dezeen blog: Golden Time Cupboard by Lola Lely

This past week I took my family on a week-long road trip down the North Island from Auckland to Wellington. Along the way we stopped off in Rotorua to soak in the hotpools, went prawn fishing outside of Taupo (yes, believe it or not, you CAN fish for prawns, but they’re damn hard to catch since they grab the food off the hook with their pincers!!), and checked out the native birds and deer at Staglands to the delight of my budding 5-year-old bird expert. We also enjoyed the charming city life of Wellington and my boys had a great time at Te Papa.

All good things must come to an end however, and after a very long and windy 6 hour drive back to Auckland, it was nice to be back home. The place had been cleared away and cleaned before we left, so it was nice to just drop our things and fall onto the couch. Before long though, I’d say in about 15 minutes, my sons got their second wind, rediscovered their toys and books and had the place littered with lego blocks, meccano and k’nex pieces, stuffed toys of native birds, random toys, paper, scissors … You get the idea. It was our “Golden Hour” of our trip - much like the “Golden Time” at kindergarten and primary schools, when at the end of the day, children can wind down by some quiet free play.

The problem with OUR golden time is we have all their toys stuffed into clear storage boxes under their bed or stacked along the wall. So if they want something, they basically turn the whole box upside down and dump everything onto the floor to find the one toy they want. There has to be a better way to organize their things, right?

Over at dezeen, I saw this post on graduate student Lola Lely’s Golden Time Cupboard, purpose-built and designed for independent classroom play at early childhood schools. Although it’s designed as classroom furniture, we’d definitely put this in our sons’ rooms. I really like the different ways toys and art supplies can be stored. Especially the “hidden” shelf behind, something my sons would really get a kick out of. Lely gets it right in making the way toys are stored to be fun - much more motivating to put things away in a fun secret spot instead of being dumped in a bin. It’s all very functional but very hip and cool (unlike stacks of plastic storage boxes). I think the only thing you’d have to do is have a sturdy step ladder for your child to reach the top, or customize one in a lower and wider version for easy access for the shorties.

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Last Saturday I headed over to The New Dowse in Lower Hutt, Wellington with my family to check out Craft 2.0. To say I was impressed and blown away would be an absolute understatement. It was cooler than cool, and the place was teeming with people who felt the same way I did. There was knitting, badges, jewellery, t-shirts, baby clothing, furniture, pottery and a variety of other things. What stood out for me was the energy of the creative atmosphere. You really got the feeling that people were excited about buying goods that were unique.

It was particularly great to catch up with Sue Tyler, founder of Craft 2.0 and one of Ponoko’s early beta users. Sue’s written about selling the products she developed using Ponoko on her blog. But I think her biggest accomplishment was in getting such an awesome event together. Well done Sue!

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Hi Everyone, we’ve had a few questions recently about what happens when you sign up for Ponoko at our registration page. Just to clarify, when you sign up you are not provided with automatic access to start using Ponoko, but you are entered into our beta user database. And it’s from this list that we select people to help us out as we move into our live phase.

It’s not easy for us to choose who goes into this beta as we’ve had a lot of people register and we while we’d love to invite everyone at this point we need to really test things so we can provide a level of satisfaction that we’ll keep you happy and excited about being part of Ponoko. If you have not received an invitation so far, do not fret - you will be invited to participate as a ‘public beta tester’ by the end of September!

To get this as good as we can, we are taking it one step at a time. And to date a limited set of ‘private beta testers’ have helped us with various parts of our business – it’s been fantastic, thank you very much. Also thank you for showing so much enthusiasm by sending us your ideas, designs and projects – I promise we will be letting you at it very soon.

Trust me, we can’t wait to let you in and for you to show us what you got.

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MoCo Loco: Laura Bezant Jewellery

I’ve written a lot about furniture and the like, but I haven’t touched on design in jewellery. I guess as a guy I don’t pay too much attention to jewellery, but this caught my wife’s eye. And since I like manga and anime, I thought this was quite cool too.

Far from traditional, Laura Bezant’s jewellery has a more edgy cultural appeal - Japanese manga and graffiti inspired cuffs, backlaces, earrings, necklaces and shoulder pieces. She laser cuts strips of leather or metal to form her intricate designs, some which may at first appear to be a pattern, but are actually words or verses. She offers bespoke cuffs and backlaces which tell a story - a string of words or verses you choose. So rather than having something engraved, you can display your words as art themselves. The only thing we wonder is whether she actually does kanji or other written languages.

(above photo from artshole.co.uk)

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