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We’ve decided to run an ongoing poll in regards to materials. We get quite a few suggestions on materials but we also know there are a lot more out there that people are interested in seeing. So if you have a moment vote below for your choice of the next material we should add to the catalog.
Over the very near future the Ponoko Blog will be introducing new bloggers to help add to the flavor and mix of our community. Today it’s with great pleasure that we welcome Industrial Designer, Duann Scott. Duann’s background (see below) is eclectic to say the least! And it’s for that reason that we think you’ll find his posts very interesting.
Greetings all.
I, Duann will be writing regular posts on the Ponoko blog to keep you all up to date with developments in the field of mass customisation, product personalisation, design software, rapid prototyping and digital manufacture techniques along with associated issues of copyright, I.P. and digital rights management.
I am an Industrial Designer based in Australia whose practice includes the design and development of one off projects for furniture, exhibitions, retail and exhibition environments as well as large scale public art projects. You can check out some of my recent cleared projects on my portfolio site.
Due to my interest in emerging design technologies and the democratisation of the design process I am currently undertaking a professional doctorate within The School of Communication at The University of South Australia. This position gives me the support and resources to investigate this exciting field at depth, information I hope to disseminate to the online community via Ponoko.
Prior to working in design my background is in music composition and performance. Excited by the DIY culture that underlies the independent music industry I had a couple of projects released on independent electronic music label Surgery Records. Modula was an experimental electronic outfit formed with Reece Schubert using entirely home made or modified analog musical instruments, all driven by an analogue sequencer constructed from sega games consoles found in the bottom of a pawnbroker’s dumpster. Toby-1 was another project signed to Surgery Records, this time using a laptop to collaborate with Ruth Wilson playing viola, flute, clarinet and voice.
Now you all know a little bit about my background I hope this develops into an informal and inspiring discussion so please feel free to post comments or links to any info you find relevant and subscribe to the feed to ensure you keep up to date with all Ponoko happenings.
The SHARE festival, based in Torino, is an international gathering for digital art and culture. SHARE exhibits electronic artworks, and awards a prize each year for advancing the state of digital art. This year Bruce Sterling is Curator and Ponoko is very excited to be presenting an exhibit there of creations by our amazing users. Photos below are from Bruce of the whole show but you can see some of the Ponoko facilitated creations early in the Slide Show.
The SHARE festival looks incredibly interesting. The full description of the speakers and conference schedule includes discussions on Robots, Digifab, Networked Objects, Digital Art and Dramatic Manufacturing. Conferences are being broadcasted live over Sharecast via the festival homepage.
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.
NZ Herald: NZ entrepreneurs going to town on web
(photo by Mark Mitchell via NZ Herald)
Well here we are already a couple of weeks into 2008! Last year was a crazy busy time for all of us at Ponoko and we are expecting even more of the same this year - it’s certainly started that way. Yesterday we were lucky enough to be featured in the NZ Herald (one of NZ’s largest newspapers). We were in great company in 2007 as fellow Kiwis innovated on the web and created startups that generated buzz online throughout the world.
Some of the companies include PlanHQ, Xero, Eurekster, Sonar6, and Madeit.com. A very diverse group of start-ups. I’ve personally had a chance to meet some of the employees and founders at a couple of these companies and I can tell you they are all really committed to one thing - helping people achieve goals that matter to them. Whether that means making accounting easy, helping you grow your business, or making your first robot. Keep up the good work everyone, hope you have a great 2008.
8 important consumer trends for 2008 – No 7: MIY – Make It Yourself
(from trendwatching.com December 2007 Monthly Trend Briefing)
There really has been an impetus towards MIY and DIY this year. A few months ago Forbes listed the Ten Industrial Design Trends You Can’t Ignore - among them the DIY/MIY movement, and loosely related “personalization” where consumers are “involved” in the design process. Trendwatching.com made their list of 8 important consumer trends to watch for next year, and again, MIY is on it. They talk about “Generation C”, which means Content created digitally. Now mainstream in the form of music, movies, blogs, etc., it’s moving towards designs and physical goods.
From Trendwatching.com:
So what’s next for GENERATION C? With (in particular younger) consumers having come to expect to be able to create anything they want as long as it is digital, and to customize and personalize many physical goods, the next frontier will be digitally designing products from scratch, then having them turned into real physical goods as well. In fact, expect MIY | MAKE IT YOURSELF (and then SIY | SELL IT YOURSELF) ventures to become increasingly sophisticated in the next 12 months.
As part of this MIY movement, we don’t see this as a fleeting trend, but as a fundamental paradigm shift to how we make, use and buy things. I think the Make-It-Yourself movement is very much linked with other shifts towards sustainable design and consumption, a return to crafts and appreciation for uniqueness and individualization, and filling the needs of many long-tail consumers. I think this trend will most definitely prevail beyond 2008 and become a major part of the status quo.
One of the more interesting points for me is how younger consumers find this so natural. Their upbringing means that they don’t see this as “craft”. They expect to be able to customize their clothes and make their own digital content. They believe they should be able to do it with products as well. Many of these younger consumers are also very entrepreneurial minded. The popular media has idolized entrepreneurs in the last ten years, and in particular “style entrepreneurs”, people like P Diddy, Snoop Dog, 50 Cent, Beyonce and Jay Z, who have built empires based on their personal style. Young consumers have quickly grasped that the Internet can provide a platform for them to spread their personal style and uniqueness for fun and profit. With the move to products I really don’t see this trend going away because of the combination of fun, accessibility and entrepreneurial activity makes it such a potent mix.
Christmas and New Years are fast approaching, and with that so are holiday hours. From Friday December 21st to Monday, January 7th our material suppliers will be closed, which may affect delivery times of products ordered. This will mostly affect plastics only, since we hold all timbers in stock.
Any orders received before the 19th of December should be business as usual but anything after that could be delayed. We apologize for any inconvenience!
More incentive to get going on those holiday creations!!
Here goes my shameless plug:
The very first Crunchies Awards is opening up the nominations for 20 categories in recognizing and celebrating web start-ups and innovations for this year. The Crunchies is a collaboration project among GigaOm, Read/WriteWeb, VentureBeat, and TechCrunch.
If you’re keen on Ponoko and the possibilities and opportunities that come from Ponoko, and you love the fact that you can now design, make, and sell your very own things, show how much you love us and send in your nomination(s) here. And hey, if it’s not us you’re nominating, it’s still all good fun! At this very moment there are 22,270 nominations so far! Nominations close midnight PST Wednesday December 12th, so you better get going.. .
Ok so our hosting provider has sorted the issue and everything is back to normal again. Sorry about the hassle, we are now putting systems in place to prevent this from happening again.
UPDATE
What ever our provider did to fix the issue they “un-did” and we can no longer upload files. We’ve given up on our provider and are now in the process of moving to a new hosting partner. We hope to have this completed in the next 12 or so hours.
Economist.com: Bespoke Manufacturing: I made it my way
Exciting stuff! Our story of personal manufacturing, in line with technologists and authors Neil Gershenfeld’s views on bits into atoms and Don Norman’s views on user-centered design, crowdsourcing and automation, are featured in this week’s Economist technology monitor.
If you want to know more about Neil Gershenfeld and his views on “After the Digital Revolution”, have a look at MITMedia Lab and also this previous post on his fascinating presentation at TEDtalks in 2006. Don Norman, a professor, designer and researcher of the relationship between technology and people, recently published The Design of Future Things. Listen to Core77’s Bruce Tharp interview podcast with him.