resources for designers

Websites Help Designers of 3-D Printed Objects Sell Templates to Consumers

DESIGNERS.Now that anyone can buy a 3D printer at Staples or through Amazon, interest in 3D printing is rising. According to Lux Research, 3D printing will be an $8.4 billion industry by 2025, up from under $1 billion in 2012. Although the models at Staples and Amazon sell for around $1200, some low-end printers, such as the MakiBox, will cost around $200. Enterprise-class 3D printers are expected to be available for under $2,000 by the year 2016.  

What the 3D printing world needs now is easy access to print-ready files for creating a wider range of products. Here are a few online marketplaces through which designers can make their files available to consumers around the world.

Cuboyo.com

Founded by three 3D printing enthusiasts in Lausanne, Switzerland, Cuboyo provides a virtual library for any type of useful object a consumer might want to 3D print and use immediately. The Cuboyo team is striving to take 3D printing beyond the realm of technophiles and make it more user-friendly to consumers. They promote their site as the marketplace for 3D printable objects. Product categories include hardware, gifts, accessories and spare parts, home and garden, sporting goods, automotive, logos and symbols, travel, IT and electronics, and kids and baby.

The process flows like this: A skilled designer creates a file corresponding to a 3D product such as a cellphone case, chess set, or ice cube tray and uploads it to Cuboyo.com Consumers can then browse through the categories, select the objects they want to print, and download the files.

LINKS

Cuboyo LLC

How Cuboyo Works

3DLT.com

3dlt1-squareThis Cincinnati-based start-up has developed a marketplace through which industrial designers, companies, and makers can upload and sell 3D printable designs directly to consumers. They offer designs for toys, tools, fashion, furniture, and gadgets.

“With all of the interest in 3D printing, and the sheer number of 3D printers being sold, there will soon be a huge demand for content, and that’s what 3DLT provides,” explains 3DLT CEO Pablo Arellano, Jr.

Buyers can output purchased designs on their own 3D printers or have the designed object printed at one of the 500 print shops already in the 3DLT network of 3D printers. The printed item can be picked up or drop shipped to the buyer’s home.  The 500 3D printers that can be accessed through the 3DLT website provide abundant options, including a wide choice of materials and competitive pricing. The founders of 3DLT believe this feature can help make 3D printing possible for nearly anyone.

Arellanno believes 3DLT’s business model has the potential to change the way people shop: “Walmart made shopping easier by putting millions of products under one roof, closer to the consumer. Amazon took the next step of delivering to your doorstep. 3DLT goes even further by allowing you to choose, when, where, and how the items you buy are manufactured.”

LINKS

3DLT: 3D Printing Template Marketplace

How to Sell on 3DLT

Coming Soon to a Print Shop Near You?

Even if 3D printers become affordable enough for use in homes or collaborative studios, the size of the items that can be printed at home may be limited. Commercial 3D printing businesses can specialize in outputting larger objects or more complex designs on a wider range of materials.

It will be interesting to see how the topic of 3D printing is addressed at the PRINT 13 Conference, September 8-12 in Chicago.

A post on Forbes.com contends that “UPS May Have Hit Pay Dirt with 3D Printing.” The article describes some of the early successes achieved in a UPS test project to see whether it makes sense for UPS franchisees to offer 3D printing as a service.  The 3-D printing service offered by a UPS Store in San Diego has attracted interest from consumers, students, small businesses, and corporations. 

When I’m in Chicago for PRINT 13, maybe I will visit The 3D Printer Experience on North Clark Street and get my head scanned and “printed” as a 3D bust. The facility has more than twenty 3D printers in house and conducts workshops on different facets of personal, desktop manufacturing.

RELATED POSTS

Enterprise-Class 3D Printers Will Be Available for Under $2,000 by 2016

MakerShop Enables You to Monetize Your Designs for 3D Printing

Learn How 3D Printing May Affect Art, Design and Business

 

Survey Shows Firms Plan to Spend More on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+ Marketing

If you sell creative services to marketing and advertising firms, it can be useful to know which social-media channels they favor for their campaigns.

More than six of ten (62 percent) of the advertising and marketing executives interviewed in a new survey by The Creative Group said they expect companies to increase spending on Facebook marketing in the next 12 months. This is up from 53 percent who planned to boost their Facebook budget one year ago.

In addition, 51 percent of the executives anticipate companies to channel more marketing dollars toward LinkedIn over the next 12 months. This is up from 38 percent last year. The percentage of executives who anticipate boosting their budgets for Google+ rose from 41 percent last year to 50 percent this year.

The national survey was developed by The Creative Group, a specialized staffing service for interactive, design, marketing, advertising and public relations professionals. It was conducted by an independent research firm. Advertising and marketing executives were asked, “Do you anticipate companies will increase or decrease their advertising/marketing investment in the following social media sites in the next 12 months?”

TCG_0713_GRAPH_Social-Media

“Today, there is a social media component to nearly every marketing campaign,” said Donna Farrugia, executive director of The Creative Group. “The challenge is determining which channels make the most sense for the brand and how to truly engage with customers via social media.”

Farrugia added, “As organizations increase their social media investment, they seek professionals with experience planning, executing and measuring the success of social media activities. In fact, social media positions ranked among the top roles advertising and marketing executives said they plan to hire during the second half of the year in a recent survey by The Creative Group.”

The national study was developed by The Creative Group and conducted by an independent research firm. It is based on more than 400 telephone interviews — approximately 300 with marketing executives randomly selected from companies with 100 or more employees and 100 with advertising executives randomly selected from agencies with 20 or more employees.

The Creative Group (TCG) specializes in placing highly skilled interactive, design, marketing, advertising and public relations professionals with a variety of firms on a project and full-time basis.

LINKS

The Creative Group

 

MakerShop Enables You to Monetize Your Designs for 3D Printing

MakerShop.co is an online marketplace for 3D printer designs. If you have a design you would like to monetize, you can either set up a basic storefront for free, or pay a small, monthly fee for a more customizable shop that offers a richer experience for your fans. On the subscription sites, you can customize many of the pages with videos, donate buttons, or special graphics.

Michael Spivey of SpiveyWorks created MakerShop.co earlier this year, because he envisions a time in the not-too-distant future when certain designs will go viral. A designer in one country one might devise something so cool over a weekend that tens of thousands of people around the world will want to download the design and print it on their own 3D printers.

The MakerShop.co website passed the 5,000th download mark in June after fans flocked to Fantasygraph’s 3D printer designs. The owner of the Fantasygraph shop said “For a long time, I tried to find a good website to run my own ‘Web shop’ for my 3D printing product. As soon as I found MakerShop, I knew that I had found my place. The interface was neat and professional, and the opening of my web shop was free and was made in ten minutes without a problem.”

MakerShop Website ScreenshotSpivey believes that enabling MakerShop “store owners” to embed more videos on their pages will enable them to make better, and more personal connections with their fans.

“People want to know who the designer is when they create great work,” says Spivey. “3D printing the work of a person is one dimension of connection. Video provides an additional way for designers to differentiate themselves in a growing marketplace for 3D printable models.”

LINK

MakerShop

 

Adobe Reports Growing Use of Digital Publishing Suite

Adobe Digital Publishing Suite was developed to enable magazine, newspaper, book, and business publishers to efficiently publish content in print, on the web, and on tablets. Publishers also use it to attract new audiences and gain insight into readers’ content consumption habits and preferences.

According to Adobe, 100 million digital downloads of magazines, newspapers, corporate publications and apps created with Adobe® Digital Publishing Suite (DPS) have been delivered to readers and customers in just over two years.

Top publishers such as Fast Company, Hearst Corporation, National Geographic, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Rodale, Scientific American and Time Inc. are using DPS to publish digital editions of their publications. With the meteoric rise in tablet devices, brands including Renault, Sotheby’s International Realty, Stryker, and U.S. Soccer also use Digital Publishing Suite to power their brands’ mobile applications.

According to a Pew Research Center report released this month, one-third of American adults own a tablet, giving traditional and corporate publishers a big opportunity to reach their audiences. Continued innovations in Adobe Digital Publishing Suite enable publishers and brands to drive readership, commerce, and customer loyalty. The latest features of DPS are designed to entice readers to purchase by allowing them to view publications on a website, sample free articles within an issue, and have optimized reading experiences on iPhone 5 and Android devices.

“Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite is driving new business opportunities for publishers and corporate brands,” said Nick Bogaty, senior director of business development and marketing, Digital Publishing at Adobe.“The 100 million digital downloads powered by Adobe have made tablets and smartphones new mediums for publishers of every type of content.”

In addition to the major multinationals that use Digital Publishing Suite, smaller independents are using it too., New Adobe publishing customers include F+W Media/Interweave, Foreign Affairs and The New Republic. Accelerated readership and readers’ willingness to pay for content is fueling growth in digital magazines, and publishers are recognizing the potential to generate advertising dollars as well as incremental revenue with extra content.

“Esquire’s first priority on the iPad has always been to use its technological capabilities to meet our creative potential,” said David Granger, editor in chief of Esquire. “Since we started using Adobe Digital Publishing Suite, we’ve been able to do more—more funny stuff, more crazy interactivity—in a stable environment. And we’ve been able to grow—bringing our Big Black Book to the iPad and, more important, creating Esquire Weekly, our digital-first, tablet-only magazine. There’s more to do with the tools and we look forward to doing it.”

The growth of brands and corporations using Digital Publishing Suite to accelerate their mobile marketing has increased 30% in the last 6 months alone. From sales tools and training materials to brand engagement, retail catalogs and customer communications, businesses are using mobile devices to engage their customers and shoppers with immersive, interactive apps. Compared to traditional web channels, these apps deliver immediacy, ongoing communication, and extensive information for purchase considerations,

“Adobe Digital Publishing Suite allowed us to launch our new crossover SUV with a splash, engaging our customers with app content on iPad, iPhone, Android tablet and desktop computer,” said Boris Petrovitch Njegosh, brand designer at Renault.

LINKS

Adobe Digital Publishing

Pew Research Center Survey: Tablet Ownership

 

Shutterstock Launches Online Learning Platform for Creatives

Whether you’re a designer, photographer, artist, videographer, multimedia journalist, or independent author, the need to learn new subjects or software seems never ending. The newest provider of online courses for digital professionals is Shutterstock — a company that is best known for providing high-quality licensed photographs, vectors, illustrations and videos to businesses, marketing agencies and media organizations around the world.

SkillfeedLogoTheir new platform called Skillfeed offers subscription-based access to thousands of videos on topics including: 3D and motion graphics, web development, graphic design, photography, video, audio, and business. Courses and tutorials cover more than 50 different programs ranging from Ableton Live, Access, and Acrobat to Word, WordPress, and Xcode and everything in between, such as Digital Publishing Suite, Maya, Premiere Pro, and Ruby.

At launch, Skillfeed features more than 10,000 videos from over 100 instructors. Select from comprehensive courses such as “Learning to Build Apps for iPhone and iPad” or “Skill Snacks” such as “How to Make a Vintage Circus Poster in Photoshop” or “How to Use Motion Templates in Final Cut Pro.”

SkillfeedScreenGrab

The comprehensive courses (with videos that last 20 minutes or more) are designed to help you develop professional skills in selected areas. The Skill Snacks are short videos you can watch on your lunch break to pick up new tips and techniques.

“We’ve learned a lot about the benefits of a global, crowdsourced marketplace model from Shutterstock, and applied that knowledge to online learning,” said Shutterstock’s Founder and CEO Jon Oringer .”The idea evolved from our existing customer and contributor communities and quickly expanded to include all digital professionals.”

“Skillfeed is a natural extension for Shutterstock since we already serve an active, paying community of more than 750,000 professionals who view us as a trusted, creative resource,” adds Oringer. “We are excited to offer yet another way to help digital communicators succeed in their work.”

To celebrate the launch, Skillfeed is offering a free one-week trial. Subscriptions for unlimited video access start at $19 per month.

If you have skills you would like to share, you can register to become a Skillfeed instructor. You will get paid every month based on how many minutes your instructional videos are viewed by Skillfeed members.

LINKS

Skillfeed

How to Become a Skillfeed Instructor

 

Word Templates Help Indie Authors Avoid Book Composition Errors

WRITERS. A new website, BookDesignTemplates.com, offers a selection of Microsoft Word templates for creating beautifully designed, industry-standard book designs. The templates can help you avoid rookie mistakes in formatting books for self-publishing.

The templates were created by book designer Joel Friedlander and independent author Tracy R. Atkins to help authors avoid common mistakes such as misplaced page numbers and running heads, no hyphenation, and inconsistent formatting.

“D-I-Y authors might think that their readers don’t care about such things, but think about all of the book professionals who might have something to say about your book,” says Friedlander. “I’m thinking of book buyers, reviewers, distributors, journalists, media bookers, and all the other people you may need for your promotion plans. They’ll see these kinds of errors right away.”

BookDesignTemplates

Some of the templates on the new website are well suited for fiction and memoirs. Other templates are meant for more complex non-fiction books that might include footnotes, tables, bullet points, and diagrams.. The site offers templates for books that will be printed in hard-copy form by print-on-demand services as well as specialized templates for e-book publishing.

With the template, you simply strip out the sample text that comes with the file, and replace it with your own manuscript.

Each template design is a fully formatted Word file with “master” pages for your text, chapter openers, title page, copyright page, and other front matter pages. In addition, you get a “Book Construction Blueprint” that tells you how the parts of a book go together, and the “Template Formatting Guide” to show you how to use the template. Also included are the fonts needed for the template, ready to install on your system, and access to a tutorial library that shows how to put your book together.

Three types of licensing are available, depending on whether you want to use the template for a single book, for multiple books, or to help multiple authors get their books ready to print.

For more information on book design and self-publishing, check out Joel’s blog, The Book Designer or online course The Self-Publishing Roadmap..

LINKS

BookDesignTemplates.com

The Book Designer

The Self-Publishing Roadmap

Adobe Gives CS Users New Reasons to Join Creative Cloud

Adobe has announced a significant update to Adobe® Creative Cloud™, the company’s flagship offering for creatives. The update includes rebranded “CC” versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver, and Premiere Pro that represent the next generation of the desktop applications formerly known as Creative Suite (CS). These CC versions will be available exclusively to Creative Cloud Members.

The update, which is expected to be available in June, includes enhanced services for building and powering websites, mobile apps, tablet publications, online portfolios, and content for virtually any medium and device. Creative Cloud users can store, sync, and share creative files on Mac OS, Windows, iOS and Android devices. Plus, on the integrated Behance online creative community, Creative Cloud users can showcase work, get feedback on projects and gain global exposure.

 

The update to Creative Cloud was announced at Adobe MAX, The Creativity Conference, May 4-8 in Los Angeles. Adobe MAX is an annual four-day event that convenes more than 5,000 industry leaders to explore how creativity is changing the world. Shown here: Adobe president and CEO Shantanu Narayen.(Photo Courtesy of Adobe/David Zentz Photography/Novus Select)
The update to Creative Cloud was announced at Adobe MAX, The Creativity Conference, May 4-8 in Los Angeles. Adobe MAX is an annual four-day event that convenes more than 5,000 industry leaders to explore how creativity is changing the world. Shown here: Adobe president and CEO Shantanu Narayen. (Photo Courtesy of Adobe/David Zentz Photography/Novus Select)

“Creative Cloud brings together everything you need to create your best work. We’re delivering incredible new versions of our desktop tools, services that take publishing content to the next level and we’re making it easier than ever for creatives to collaborate and share their work worldwide,” said David Wadhwani, senior vice president and general manager, Digital Media, Adobe. “Creative Cloud is a destination that champions inspiring work and builds lasting connections within a vibrant global creative community.”

Frictionless Creative Workflows

This milestone update to Creative Cloud is designed to simplify the entire creative process. Core features include:

Desktop, Web and Mobile Access. Creative Cloud allows users to stay connected with workgroups and the creative community via their desktop, website, or mobile device. With Creative Cloud, your entire creative world gets its own centralized hub where ideas, files, fonts, settings, notifications, and team members are connected and organized. Join group folders to work collaboratively; track updates and comments to shared files; stay connected to work on Behance; get notified when app updates are available and download the latest updates; and access favorite colors, fonts and settings, wherever you are.

Integration With The World’s Leading Creative Community. With Behance now integrated with Creative Cloud, members will be able to publish their own portfolios, follow other creatives, publish work-in-progress from within a growing number of CC apps and solicit feedback from the worldwide creative community. Over 1.4 million creatives globally are part of the Behance network.

Synchronize, Store, Share and Collaborate. All files and assets will be automatically synchronized between the desktop, cloud and mobile devices. A designer can take a photo on an iPad, use Photoshop® Touch to refine the photo while on the go, then access that file, via the cloud, and use Photoshop CC on their Mac or Windows PC to further enhance the image. Designers can designate shared folders and invite others to collaborate on files. Edits are stored with version history so users can share their files with confidence. Individual members receive 20GB of storage.

Seamless Publishing. Creative Cloud members have access to the services necessary to publish highly personalized portfolio websites using Behance ProSite, high-impact digital magazines for iPad using Digital Publishing Suite (DPS) Single Edition, and PhoneGap™ Build to create and publish mobile apps for any device. Adobe Typekit features an unmatched library of old-classic to new-favorite fonts for use on websites – and, with this update, creatives can use many of these same fonts directly in their desktop applications.

New Family of CC Desktop Apps

This update to Creative Cloud includes the next generation of Adobe desktop applications — including Adobe Photoshop CC, InDesign® CC, Illustrator® CC, Dreamweaver® CC and Premiere® Pro CC. Each of these tools has been reinvented to support a more intuitive, connected way of creating professional-grade content for print, web, mobile apps, video, and photography. Hundreds of new features are included in these latest versions of Adobe’s desktop tools.

PhotoshopCC will ship with new sharpening technologies and designer workflow enhancements. Camera Shake Reduction deblurs images that would have otherwise been lost due to camera movement. All-new Smart Sharpen makes texture and detail pop, and Adobe Camera Raw 8 adds even more powerful photographic controls to straighten and perfect images. Photoshop CC is the first Adobe desktop application to include the ability to post files directly to Behance from within the application, showcasing work immediately and integrating peer feedback into the creative process.

IllustratorCC includes a Touch Type tool that gives designers a new level of creativity with type. Move, scale, and rotate text characters knowing that it remains editable. This feature works with a mouse, stylus or multi-touch device. Illustrator also enables painting with a brush made from a photo. Art, Pattern, and Scatter brushes can contain raster images, so designers can create complex organic designs quickly, with simple brush strokes.

InDesignCC features a new, modern architecture that turbocharges performance and in-browser editing.

Adobe Muse CC, a tool that enables designers to create and publish HTML websites without writing code, allows clients to make edits to a published website. These edits can then be reviewed, approved, and updated by the designer

AdobePremiereProCC includes new editing features, customizations and improvements to help editors work efficiently. Premiere Pro CC integrates powerful color workflows, with the addition of the Lumetri™ Deep Color Engine to easily apply rich color grading looks.

Adobe After Effects® CC brings more creative possibilities to motion graphics and visual effects artists. Users can work more easily in 3D with the new Live 3D Pipeline with Maxon Cinema4D integration. There are also all-new versions of Adobe SpeedGrade CC, Audition® CC, Prelude™ CC and Adobe Story CC Plus.

Web designers and developers can look forward to significant advances in Adobe’s family of Edge tools and services. The latest Edge Animate CC lets web designers create animated and interactive content with amazing ease and precision, using native HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

Adobe is also previewing a new workflow from Photoshop CC to Edge Reflow CC that will enable creatives to build web designs in Photoshop that can easily be turned into responsive web sites.

DreamweaverCC users can look forward to the most up-to-date CSS and properties via the intuitive visual editing tool, CSS Designer. And Adobe Flash® Pro CC features a modern, modular 64-bit architecture rebuilt from the ground up to be fast and reliable.

Membership Plans

Although the updates won’t be available until June, Adobe is encouraging creatives to sign up for Creative Cloud now so they can be prepared to download the latest innovations as soon as they are available. Creative Cloud membership for individuals is US$49.99 per month based on annual membership. Existing customers who own CS3 to CS5.5 get their first year of Creative Cloud at the discounted rate of US $29.99 per month.

Students and teachers can get Creative Cloud for $29.99 per month. Promotional pricing is available for some customers, including CS6 users. Subscription plans are also available for teams, enterprises, educational institutions, and governments.

LINKS

AdobeCreativeCloud

Behance