Jewelry making with Shapeways

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I got an email this week from Goncalo Campos.  He sent me a bunch of pictures of the jewelry he is creating through Shapeways. 

Shapeways is a personal fabrication service using 3D printers to create products for you.  In full disclosure, Shapeways is also a Union Square Ventures investment. USV is my husbands VC firm. 

Goncalo is an artist.  After working in England, France and Italy he now lives in Portugal where he is building a small studio to concentrate on his work.  His first love was furniture but through Shapeways, his world has completely opened up. You can upload any model and then they print it for you in the material specified.  The prices are great and they are included in shipping so there are no surprises.  Love that. 

As Gancalo put it, with Shapeways the rules have changed.  He can have a shop on their site that allows him to ship cheaper and faster because it is coming directly from the manufacturer.  It is a new way of production that is allowing him to experiment with new fabrications.  Also, there is no inventory which is perfect for an artist or anyone. 

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Gancalo is 25.  He is the next generation of artists using a brand new tool through Shapeways that will help artists like Gancalo expand his mind in a completely different direction.  Check it out.  The possibilities are endless. 

Here is what Gancalo wrote to me…
These are objects to represent the marvels of cutting edge technology and the possibilities it unveils. When worn they incorporate both, the contrast and harmony, of the human being and technology.

Brilliant!

Here is an article written by Nick Bilton of the NYTimes about Shapeways today.

Comments (Archived):

  1. Caterine

    Absolutely amazing what technology combined with talent is capable of nowadays. Very impressive. Thank you for written such interesting articles. I don’t miss any of them. Have a lovely week and greetings from London!

    1. Gotham Gal

      love that someone from London is checking in every day. thanks so much!

      1. Caterine

        My pleasure. You are a very inspiring person. Take care.

      2. Innocenti Paola

        Form Florence Italy too! Great that tecnology breaks distance and bring together people with same interests.We should try and organize though real meetings, since the human aspect is still dominant at least to me.

  2. Caterine

    I meant weekend instead of week…

  3. Innocenti Paola

     I am very traditional as far a jewerly….only style I really like is Buccellati.I have no jewerly since I can not afford the one I love.Will certainly check in to see if I can get the style I like.Though what about intellectual property? Can one duplicate anything he likes?What if someone use someone else design…..

    1. Gotham Gal

      good question. not sure how that works.

      1. Innocenti Paola

        Went through, really great service I love it!Though I belive they should clarify the process, many parts I do not quite understand since I am not native english speaking. so they should improove clarity.

        1. Gotham Gal

          Will pass that on

          1. Innocenti Paola

            Just wrote the CEO. Smart guys are always fast to reply. Would love to add their services to my community, now lets see how it goes.Thanks for posting them! They opened to my  mind a complete new row of possibilities 

    2. ellen

      It is very difficult to pattern jewelry because designers get inspirations from other known products.  For instance the David Yurman cable bracelet- years ago Yurman tried to sue a Texas sterling manufacturer for copying his design but lost, since the first cable bracelet was an ancient design that appeared in many books on ancient civilizations.I have seen so many Buccellati 18k copies.  Some are very good and made in China too.  If you don’t look too closely you could never tell.  Only, I, carry my loupe everywhere.

  4. leigh

     hum….very interesting.  we have a friend who manufactures custom kitchens and he showed me an application he had built (for a new venture he’s starting) doing customized manufacturing of furniture online.  It was insanely cool (and he’s living in small town Ontario so its wildly ambitious in many ways) and does the exact opposite of IKEA.  It’s all based on the premise that we all want something that is one foot wider, or just a bit taller but none of us want to pay the insane dollars it would take to make it from scratch.  This seems to me to be based on a similar and very smart premise.  

    1. Gotham Gal

      if you can manufacture 3-D objects such as customer kitchens and dining roomtables to spec with interesting fabrications…the market will completelychange. very cool.

  5. ellen

    I am a bit fuzzy about the service also.  If I want the “Zanotta’s Bieder table costumization, as an expression of what can happen under a table” what do I need to do.  Are they selling the table in their design with my measurements, or my custom design and measurements and in what material or is it a design application? Help?