You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. Likewise, you can lead an ass to knowledge, but you can't make them think! ;)
In any case, thank you so much for sharing some paths for further learning - for those of us who are new on the journey, it is always so much appreciated!
Your work is so inspiring - it is so exciting to be on the frontier of new forms of creative expression! I find it so amazing that one can design a surface or an object and literally materialize it out of thin air, and it is so pleasurable to float around in a sea of infinite possibilities.
My background is in modular synthesis, so discovering grasshopper is such a wonderful impedance match for my brain - instead of exploring and searching through infinite and beautiful parameter spaces for perfect little gems of sound, I get to manifest geometries instead ;)
Really interesting topic, and I love what you’re starting to unpack.
It makes me wonder, beyond just wanting a shortcut, what are the underlying motivations in wanting “settings”? Is it cost saving (I want to print my own lamp), the desire to study from someone they admire (how did he make this), or something else?
I also totally agree on the business side and I think you have the right to do that without any shame. On the practice side, I could go either way. A lot of human progress stems from our ability to start where others stopped. But I also agree with you in the value of fumbling your way to something and learning through the process.
I think there are a variety of reasons that people ask for specifics about how I make particular things. Sometimes it’s settings, sometimes it’s asking for the specific manufacturer of a material, and sometimes it’s asking for the print files. In terms of reasons why, it can be 1) they are curious about how to make stuff on a printer and want to learn how 2) they have a printer and just want to print something themselves and not buy it and 3) they themselves have a printing business and basically want a trade secret to apply to their own business. 1 is totally great, and largely who this essay is oriented towards - those who are curious and want to learn. That’s why I provide some resources for people to try to learn those things. 2 is interesting because sometimes folks are in a geographical region we don’t actually ship to so it’s not totally unreasonable to ask if we might provide files so they can print them locally. I’d love to address this somehow in a way that feels mutually beneficial but don’t have good answers on how to accommodate this yet. 3 is particularly challenging because it’s true that we’re dealing with machine code and mechanical reproduction and so it’s very reasonable to assume that someone could take print files and produce an identical item - and with the easy access to marketplaces and no real recourse for us to prevent people from doing this - we need to protect ourselves somehow. There are derivative products on Etsy, and that’s fine, but there are also direct copies of our stuff - which of course is bound to happen. But I don’t want to make this easier.
Overall, I think it’s tough to find a good solution to address all three of these things. But writing this and providing a few resources tries to accommodate the first party as best I can, with the limited time that I have.
Hi Sean, I recently purchased one of your lights and love it. While it’s awesome to contribute to the creative community I also think that you don’t owe anyone anything. The focus should be on inspiring each other, sharing best practices, even learnings. But not full designs. Just my two cents. Love your products.
Hi Yoori! Thanks so much. I think that a good part of my desire to share is that many people shared with me as I was a beginner, so I’d like to pay that forward a bit. But yes, I refuse outright to provide full designs for products that are the cornerstone of my business. There are design files that we have made available for free - some old products that we’ve retired and some experiments (like a chess set we designed) and I’m happy to share those.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. Likewise, you can lead an ass to knowledge, but you can't make them think! ;)
In any case, thank you so much for sharing some paths for further learning - for those of us who are new on the journey, it is always so much appreciated!
Your work is so inspiring - it is so exciting to be on the frontier of new forms of creative expression! I find it so amazing that one can design a surface or an object and literally materialize it out of thin air, and it is so pleasurable to float around in a sea of infinite possibilities.
My background is in modular synthesis, so discovering grasshopper is such a wonderful impedance match for my brain - instead of exploring and searching through infinite and beautiful parameter spaces for perfect little gems of sound, I get to manifest geometries instead ;)
Really interesting topic, and I love what you’re starting to unpack.
It makes me wonder, beyond just wanting a shortcut, what are the underlying motivations in wanting “settings”? Is it cost saving (I want to print my own lamp), the desire to study from someone they admire (how did he make this), or something else?
I also totally agree on the business side and I think you have the right to do that without any shame. On the practice side, I could go either way. A lot of human progress stems from our ability to start where others stopped. But I also agree with you in the value of fumbling your way to something and learning through the process.
Thanks for the post!
I think there are a variety of reasons that people ask for specifics about how I make particular things. Sometimes it’s settings, sometimes it’s asking for the specific manufacturer of a material, and sometimes it’s asking for the print files. In terms of reasons why, it can be 1) they are curious about how to make stuff on a printer and want to learn how 2) they have a printer and just want to print something themselves and not buy it and 3) they themselves have a printing business and basically want a trade secret to apply to their own business. 1 is totally great, and largely who this essay is oriented towards - those who are curious and want to learn. That’s why I provide some resources for people to try to learn those things. 2 is interesting because sometimes folks are in a geographical region we don’t actually ship to so it’s not totally unreasonable to ask if we might provide files so they can print them locally. I’d love to address this somehow in a way that feels mutually beneficial but don’t have good answers on how to accommodate this yet. 3 is particularly challenging because it’s true that we’re dealing with machine code and mechanical reproduction and so it’s very reasonable to assume that someone could take print files and produce an identical item - and with the easy access to marketplaces and no real recourse for us to prevent people from doing this - we need to protect ourselves somehow. There are derivative products on Etsy, and that’s fine, but there are also direct copies of our stuff - which of course is bound to happen. But I don’t want to make this easier.
Overall, I think it’s tough to find a good solution to address all three of these things. But writing this and providing a few resources tries to accommodate the first party as best I can, with the limited time that I have.
Hi Sean, I recently purchased one of your lights and love it. While it’s awesome to contribute to the creative community I also think that you don’t owe anyone anything. The focus should be on inspiring each other, sharing best practices, even learnings. But not full designs. Just my two cents. Love your products.
Hi Yoori! Thanks so much. I think that a good part of my desire to share is that many people shared with me as I was a beginner, so I’d like to pay that forward a bit. But yes, I refuse outright to provide full designs for products that are the cornerstone of my business. There are design files that we have made available for free - some old products that we’ve retired and some experiments (like a chess set we designed) and I’m happy to share those.