Desktop Manufacturing

This week I tried out two cool services: Ponoko and Spoonflower. Both are new entries in a little niche called desktop manu­fac­turing, where you can design some­thing at your home computer and have it fabri­cated in small quan­ti­ties without sacri­ficing quality or paying heavy setup fees.
Ponoko is basi­cally an online laser cutter. You send them outlines created in Illustrator or Sketchup, and then choose from a menu of mate­rials to have your shapes cut from. A few weeks later, you get a package in the mail! I tested it out with some Morroco-inspired stars that I had lying around my hard drive, and cut them out of yellow acrylic. So if you see me wearing yellow acrylic star earrings, you’ll know where they came from. :)

Spoonflower is the same idea, but for textiles. You create a square design that can repeat or tile in any direc­tion and then upload it to the site. Choose the size of fabric you want to print (anywhere from a fat quarter up to three yards) and in a few weeks you have your own fabric to work with! This has been my desktop back­ground for a couple months now, but as fabric its destined to be a pair of pillows in a certain New York lady’s new apart­ment.