Ponoko collaboration love

2007.Jul.19. Thursday - by lvhrd

credits: Ponoko

Ponoko circle of love

Ponoko's idea for collaboration between designers is a cool one. You submit a design to the Ponoko website, if they like it, they send it to their factory and it gets built by people and machines. Then you take your finished product and post it in the Ponoko online showroom. People see your design, love it, buy it, and you make $.

If you're a designer looking for a factory you can sign up to beta test Ponoko. Check out their blog for some designs they've already manufactured.

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One Response to “Ponoko collaboration love”

1. Nic Says:
   Jul.20.2007 : 12:34 am

   Howdy, cheers for the blog! Just wanted to clarify that Ponoko don’t decide ‘what’ does or doesn’t get made. We’d never purport ourselves to be the experts of what is and isn’t worth making! What we perceive Ponoko being is pretty much ‘the’ place where anyone (designer, inventor, wannabe designer/creator - or anything else laterally related to this!) can upload their designs through the many desktop manufacturing hardwares available (for eg: www.desktopfactory.com and www.ulsinc.com ) and then Ponoko will connect them to the manufacturer/fabber and the consumer all (in time!) in either the designer, or the consumer’s own country - and in many cases, their own city. So the end product works out to be potentially exceptionally cost effective, and time effective. Some may find the website at present a little light on ‘what exactly we’re about’ - but Ponoko’s working toward an awesome open to all launch in a few months. But in a nut shell, Ponoko’s looking at the very real future of offering anyone the possibility of being able to make whatever you want with any material available (at the moment we deal in various woods and plastics). And potentially create long term revenue (or just create something cool for themselves that you’ve always wanted). We are in closed beta testing (for those, like me a while back, that aren’t familiar with what closed beta is - this is testing the whole process with a variety of independent people to sort out any initial hurdles!) at the moment. And the results of this have been amazing. People such as Jeff, who isn’t a designer, have created some amazing furniture that has already received worldwide interest and sales. His second piece is on Ponoko’s latest blog: http://www.ponoko.com/blog/2007/07/16/second-table-done/ The pretty amazing concept re. the future is that this isn’t just about furniture design, and isn’t just about designing for the masses. But is for all those people out there who want one-off design pieces for just themselves! Personal design and manufacturing for ‘one’. And then, if others love it too (not just your Mum!) you’ll get that feedback and interest through the Ponoko customer database. It’s just mindblowing to consider where this company will be in six months, a year, and then beyond. And then also mindblowing for all the designers/creators/inventors who will be a part of it! If this sounds like a bit of you. Sign up to be a part of the open beta testing that will happen in a couple of months through www.ponoko.com Cheers, Nic, Ponoko.