Michael Berman, Senior VP/CTO of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena sent this in - a poster up on the wall of the Ponoko 10-Day Jewelry Design Challenge.

Art Center has been on the forefront of graphic design, industrial design and other creative arts for the past 75 years, generating some well known designers and artists in various industries - including product design, automobile design, film directing and popular music (here’s a list of notable graduates and teachers) which includes some personal favourites of mine like Chip Foose, Stan Sakai and Mike Shinoda. It’s pretty exciting for all of us at Ponoko to see a poster up there, so thanks a lot to Michael and Bruce Dominguez. We’re really looking forward to seeing what Art Center can come up with in the challenge.

If you feel like sharing the news about our Jewelry Design Challenge at your school, local art center, library, workplace or anywhere; you can download your own copy of our Jewelry Design Challenge poster to distribute.

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Macenstein wrote up a good story about DIY green iPod speakers. No, not literally the color green, green as in, good for the earth because you’re recycling. See below:

These speakers actually use the packaging that the iPod nano or shuffle comes in. I’ve often held on to the packaging for any Mac stuff because it looks so cool - but after several months with no use for it, I’ve reluctantly had to throw it out. The speaker component is a $40 DIY kit from Bird Electron. No power source is needed and it just fits into the packaging case of the nano/shuffle. Threw that out? Then what about a water bottle! How’s that for recycling?!

Bird Electron, a Japanese company actually has some other really cool iPod accessories on their website, like this wooden stand for your iTouch:

and these funky iPod speakers that are made from Japanese gourds (squash for all you who don’t eat your vegetables!). I don’t think I’ve seen speakers made from vegetables before, I guess if you’re organically growing the cases for your speakers in your own garden then you are really taking green living to a new level.

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With the recent announcement of our very big 10-day Jewelry Design Challenge I thought I’d share which pieces that I already like that are up on Ponoko. If they are any indication of the kind of entries we can expect then I’m glad I’m not one of the judges, it’s going to be tough to pick a winner.

Snoork the super-cute puppy brooch is a limited production run from Chromatophobic. Chromatophobic goes to a lot of trouble to describe their jewelry and characters. And Snoork is no different, in particular you might think the teeth look pretty vicious, but here is what Chromatophobic says about him: “He never uses his sharp teeth to bite anyone. He does not resort to aggression to get revenge. Instead, Snoork poops inside the perpetrator’s shoes”.

The Unicorn is a magical creature and I think this jewelry is too. I’m also certain I saw someone wearing the white one of these in Wellington last week. Like any good piece of jewelry it really jumped out at me when I saw it. It’s from the magical SuperVery.

More brilliant Chromatophobic - this time it’s Erik.

This tiki is really unique and I think the colours are great. There is also a great black version as well. Another cool thing about it - the designer makes furniture as well!

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Body adornment dates back 30,000 years. It serves as a way to communicate our personal identity to the world and has a physical and emotional relationship to our bodies.

Your challenge is to create inspired and evocative jewelry on a laser cutter – within 10 days!

You can treat material in a variety of ways using a laser-cutter. You can cut shapes and mark patterns on the surface. You can create a single 2D piece or something more complex assembled from a number of parts.

Laser surface treatments can be a graphic in nature or a texture. There are infinite possibilities for treating the surface of a material to add value and interest.

Jewelry need not be 2D. You could make 3D jewelry using layers of material connected in an interesting way. Think about how multiple pieces can be combined to create an interesting design.

Attention to detail, material combinations, connections, production feasibility and quality will be key to making your design stand out.

Up to $10,000 in prizes

Up for grabs:

* Open round
o The designers of the top 25 entries get their product made for free – that’s materials, making and shipping
o Plus they’ll be invited to submit their entry into the final round

* Invitation round
o The top 10 designs win US$300 cash
o Plus there’s an additional Grand Prize of US$1,000 cash for the overall winner

Design requirements:

* It must be possible for Ponoko to make the main component of your design.
* Designs must be new (i.e. not already hosted on Ponoko).
* You can only use materials in the Ponoko materials catalog.
* You can use extras such as hooks, chains, clasps, pins etc (supplied and assembled by you).
* If you submit multiple designs, they must be unique. Please don’t just submit iterations of the same design.
* Designs may be as simple or as complex as you want.

Judging:

There are two phases to the judging process:

1) Open Round – Submit your product design idea

The first round will be judged on a graphic representation and a description of your idea. Entries will be accepted between 1 March 2008 and 10 March 2008.

Here’s how: Upload images of your idea into your MyPonoko account. The images need to show what your design looks like (sketches, renders, photos, 3D drawings) plus you need to include a description of up to 200 words that communicates your design concept. (See ‘How to enter’ below for more information about submitting your design.)

2) Invitation Round – Submit your finished product

If your design is selected among the top 25 entries, we will make it and ship it to you free of charge. We will also invite you to enter your design in the final round. Entries for this round close on 28 March 2008.

The final round will be judged on photos and text description of your completed product.

Judging criteria

Entries/finalists will be judged on the following criteria, in no particular order:

1. Innovation in design concept
2. Clarity and resolution of design
3. Originality
4. Presentation and photography
5. Interesting use of material(s)
6. Attention to detail
7. Production feasibility

How to enter

Open Round – from March 1st to 10th 2008, you’ve got 10 days!

Go to your MyPonoko account and upload the following elements into your Showroom:

1. Product design .eps files
2. Photos/images representing the final product
3. Up to 200 words describing your idea
4. Enter the tag “Competition1Open”

The key here is getting your idea across. 3D sketches and photos of cardboard models are great ways to show what something will look like.

Remember, your entry must be submitted between March 1 and March 10 2008. This means you have just 10 days to come up with an idea and upload it into your Ponoko Showroom. This is the challenge – we want to see how good you really are!

Here’s a step-by-step guide to entering the Open Round

What happens next?

Monday 17 March 2008 - We announce the winners of the Open Round

Congratulations! The top 25 entries into the Open Round will be made and shipped for free and go through to the final round.

Friday 21 March 2008 – We will have delivered the top 25 products to the Open Round winners

If you’re one of our Open Round winners, we’ll be busy making and shipping your stuff to you. Once you get it, you will have about a week to assemble your product, add any finishing touches, photograph it and upload the new photos into your Ponoko Showroom.

Friday 28 March 2008 - Entries close for the Invitation Round

Go to your MyPonoko account and upload the following elements into your Showroom:

1. Photos of your final assembled product
2. The tag “Competition1Finalist”

Tip: Photos on a plain white or black background look best. Use a tripod if possible and avoid using a flash. If your camera has a macro function using this will help with any close up photos or detail shots.

Monday March 31st 2008 - We announce the winners of the Invitation Round

Congratulations! The top 10 finalists will win US$300 and the grand prize winner will receive US$1,000.

See the following page for important details on Competition Terms & Conditions (including details on your intellectual property & copyright and competition eligibility).

Please contact us if you need help with any aspect of this competition.

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We’ve heard loud and clear from our users about shipping over the last few months. And everyone on the Ponoko team has been working really hard to make changes to support our users. So it’s with great pleasure that I can formally announce our new shipping costs. The result is that shipping costs to our users in the US are slashed. And on top of that costs will be lower for almost everyone everywhere in the world as well, depending on the material and amount of materials you are having delivered.

To really give you an idea of the difference, here’s a BEFORE and AFTER comparison of where our pricing starts from for sending a single P1 or P3 sized material to different parts of the world:

* To send a P1 anywhere in the USA was $51.36 it’s NOW $14.60

* To send a P3 to New York City was $99.73 it’s NOW $20.55

* To send a P3 to San Francisco was $99.73 it’s NOW $17.75

* To send a P1 to Tokyo was $56.84 it’s NOW $38

* To send a P1 to Berlin was $45.81 it’s NOW $40.50

* To send a P1 to Barcelona was $55.72 it’s NOW $40.50

* To send a P1 to Paris was $70.25 it’s NOW $40.50

* To send a P1 to Ottawa was $44.29 it’s NOW $33.25

* To send a P1 to Sydney was $33.07 it’s NOW $16.38

To figure out how much your shipment will cost, check out our Ponoko Shipping FAQ for Designers, which includes a price guide for common shipping destinations (including by zip code). Or better yet, upload a design to your MyPonoko account to get an instant online price for making and shipping.

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Our credit card processing provider are having a scheduled downtime for maintenance tonight at 12am to 3:30am on the 18th of Feb NZT. During this time we have disabled the Make process on the myPonoko website. This works out to 11am to 2:30pm, 17th of Feb UTC/GMT. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience caused.

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This is a really interesting project from designers Marcel Krings and Sebastian Mühlhäuser called the Casulo. While they aren’t about to replace Ikea furniture anytime soon I do think it’s a really good piece of design and will appeal to people who want to have a reasonable amount of furniture but still want the flexibility to pack up and move on quickly.

You can pack up everything within 10 minutes and it gives you some pretty useful bedroom furniture. You get a desk, bed, bookshelf, wardrobe and even a little filing cabinet. I have no idea how much it costs but since cheap furniture is usually REALLY cheap furniture from the perspective that you don’t like it, it’s weak and ugly and it still becomes a hassle when you have to move it. I would think that the Casulo might be nice alternative. In particular for larger cities that have a lot of one room apartments.

Although I liked this, some people don’t. I first found it on DesignAddict and one commenter mentioned he thought this was “Ikea furniture for Guatanamo Bay inmates”. You can’t please everyone I guess!

** ** Design your own furniture with easy to use furniture design software and make it with Ponoko - Free Download.

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Flat-packed designs are cool because they’re easy to ship and transport, and usually are easy to set up. And one thing we’ve found on Ponoko is that making home lighting is one area that a lot of people are keen to explore. Already in our showroom we have designers who have created various lamps including table lamps and floor lamps. Using Ponoko means that all these lamps are available flat packed.

I was looking at other lighting design sites recently and came across the chandelier below designed by MIO Founder Jaime Salm on Yanko Design. I was pleasantly surprised with how it turned out looking. After all, when you think of chandelier, you think all sorts of rounded shapes and often bulkiness. This chandelier is a series of laser-cut powder coated steel leaf-like shades situated around the lighting fixture. The personalized touch to this is that the leaves are bendable so you end up “co-creating” your unique shape for your chandelier.

** Design your own lamp with easy to use lamp design software and make it with Ponoko - Free Download.

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While I’ve written quite a bit about Inkscape recently, that’s not to say that Illustrator isn’t popular around here in our Ponoko office! We want to make sure that users and those thinking about Ponoko can find the help they need in getting technical issues sorted out in making their designs and uploading them onto Ponoko. Here are some useful links - user communities and tutorials on everything Illustrator (in no particular order):

Adobe’s Users-to-User Forum on Illustrator

Illustrator User Group Forum - Join other Illustrator aficionados in this lively discussion forum hosted by Digital Media Net.

Illustrator World — This is a community site devoted to Adobe® Illustrator® software and vector graphics. View and share Illustrator artwork with other users, read and contribute to forums, access tips and techniques, and participate in design contests.

Mike’s Sketchpad - Basic tutorials in Illustrator for new users

Tutorialselect.com - A pligg (think Digg) on free tutorials and lessons on design - esp. on Illustrator

About.com Illustrator Tutorials - ranging from Basics & Tools; Creating Art & Effects; and Type, Text Effects & Logos.

BioRust Illustrator Tutorials - An interactive design community offering forums, tutorials and resources.

DeZine Zone Tutorials - Look to the left side menu and see the Illustrator tutorials for Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced

N.Design Studio - Design blog by a designer who shares his passion in Illustrator tutorials intended for intermediate users.

I know there’s a slew of them out there - some better than others. And since Illustrator integrated a search function with del.icio.us, it should be easier to find the right contextual resources you need — so if you know of any more sites or recommend any particular one, please feel free to add them in the comments - thanks!

Once you get going on Illustrator, go ahead and download your Ponoko Starter Kit in Illustrator for the Ponoko making guide and templates. If you still have questions or want to share some newfound knowledge, check out our Forum to discuss with other Illustrator/Ponoko users.

**Remember we’re running a contest this month for file uploads, so if you create your designs and add them to MyPonoko, you might have a good chance to win $250 worth of fun designing and making with Ponoko.**

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Over the holidays I’ve had a bit more time to play around with Inkscape and try my hand at making stuff with Ponoko. And as a newbie with graphic software, there are still some issues that puzzle me. So I turned to our forum to ask this question:

“I have an image I’ve traced and coloured so I can get it rastered onto a piece of acrylic. But I’ve found that when I select the image and try to copy it into the P1 file in the starter kit all the details in the engraving change. The lines just seem to all get thicker and it wrecks the image. Any ideas on why the image is changing when I’m doing a simple cut and past within Inkscape?”

Right away I got a really good step-by-step explanation from Ponoko’s jimmy.kl. So I thought I’d share this on the blog because I know there are some people out there who are dealing with learning curves on Inkscape. Help can be found here on our site, especially on our Forums.

Here’s his reply:

“Hmm, not sure why Inkscape does this but it seems to be adding a black stroke around all the objects you paste into the template.

I fixed it by going to the Fill and Stroke palette, then in the Stroke Paint tab I clicked the cross to remove any stroke from the traced paths.

An example for anyone else following this thread…

In a new document I traced our logo with these settings:

which had this result:

but when I cut n pasted to the P1 template it looked like this:

So I opened up the Fill and Stroke palette, went to the Stroke Paint tab and clicked the cross to remove any stroke from the traced paths and that fixed it.

I will investigate further and see if there’s a way to update the template files so this does not happen. But in the meantime I hope this workaround helps you out Steven.”

If you want to add to the discussion thread, check here, under Making Stuff: Inkscape Issues.

**Remember we’re running a contest this month for file uploads, so if you create your designs and add them to MyPonoko, you might have a good chance to win $250 worth of fun designing and making with Ponoko.**

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