I am hoping that there might be a few free company designs that go along with the Proofgrade materials package. That way, a newbie like myself can print something right after unpacking and setting up the Glowforge.
At the same time, advanced laser users wouldn’t be tied to the sample designs, and they can print whatever they like.
I would really appreciate a simple tutorial with these few prints to teach me a little bit about the machine and different reactions of materials when lasered.
A quick note to all of the people who see the materials as potentially useless, since they have VERY specific use cases (btw, @DeadCrowCustoms, I cannot wrap my mind around what you describe well enough to form a mental image… which makes me VERY eager to see what you accomplish. Sounds innovative.)
You get $150 in materials.
You get $50 in Designs.
Sure, you might not PLAN to use other materials. But I would venture you can spend your $50 in the catalogue to get some very nice gifts for friends and family from all of the materials in your $150 pack.
If the Glowforge crew is smart, the moment they finalize the contents of the material pack, they will sit down everyone with any artistic/design capability for a weekend and belt out a $50 design catalogue entry which happens to perfectly use everything in the materials pack.
I am going to use the $50 dollar gift card to buy some pre made plans so I can just hit print an go, seems like an easy way to get acquainted with the gf before I attempt something more invokved
I welcome material I didn’t plan to use - you never know what new ideas those materials might unlock!
I’m hoping that I can spend the $50 Design credit on art/designs made by other glowforge users. maybe 5 $10 (or 2 $25, or 10 $5 or… well you get it), one-time-print, 2d art engravings to hang on the wall. Similar to buying a print from the artist at an art show; an artist whose “real” work you cannot afford, but who you would like to support and whose art you enjoy.
I could see a scenario where every forum member could have an option to post an image somewhere in their profile which would populate a specific, price-controlled section of the design store. I could then show my appreciation of their work or their forum participation or whatever by purchasing their “profile/forum-connection” piece.
that could be way out of the realm of feasibility, but it really would be great to be able to use the credits to support each other.
Yeah.
I think one concern I have is that I don’t want to see this design catalog turn out to be an expensive place that I only use for window shopping. The GF people have been very, very smart about monetization - building that supply catalog is pretty genius, in my opinion - and given that they’ve hired two designers to “sit around” and make up laser projects, I expect them to charge for this work.
But I’d much rather see them charge for the laser and the materials only; charging for company designs in the company store on the company laser using company materials really starts to feel like getting nickel and dimed (this complaint obviously doesn’t apply to user-submitted work).
On the Q&A from Wednesday, April 20, 2016 @dan really emphasized the quality of the designs that will be available, I assume for purchase. I didn’t get the impression that allowing user shared designs was a big priority. That marketplaces for custom game levels and characters maps well to what Glowforge wants to do is totally out of my experience. I am expecting that the revenue stream from materials and designs is a crucial part of their business model.
While I expect them to create some nice things, I don’t think they’re going to be producing any designs that are leagues better than what you can already buy, plan-wise, for projects. I didn’t bother watching the Q&A, but my impression of the design store was that it would be something more akin to a smartphone app store (the company taking a cut, users getting to sell designs, etc, etc).
I would be deeply disappointed to see it turn into something that’s just a bunch of company designs for sale at high prices - there is absolutely nothing innovative about that whatsoever. The $50 of design store credit becomes much less of a value-add, in my opinion, if it’s all stuff that they’ve made and are charging for.
It would be a nice incentive for users to upload their designs though…
get some glowforge bucks to use towards materials for everyone that pays for your design, or even have them paypal you quarterly…
Sure, that’s my point.
ah, I agree on the company based designs. didnt see opinions on user based designs being sold. guess were on the same page =)
While the delay is unfortunate, I rather have something that is properly beta tested etc (plus I need a few more month to get my workspace setup…so for me it’s actually a blessing). Can’t say I understand the complaints about the freebies. As others have said…even if they dont fit onto your planned usage, they should come in handy for gifts…or sell them to other users.
Look at the disaster for the coolest cooler campaign. Not only are original backers still waiting, while it’s being offered on amazon, now they are asked to pay more… http://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2016/02/82285-coolest-cooler-not-so-cool-as-project-runs-short-of-cash/
Delays/redesigns can happen, and for new product, especially crowdfunded, should not be a surprise (yes it sucks, but it is what it is). If the glowforge team would not have the investors and product development were part of our pre-order payment, I would be much more worried. The biggest risk I see is competitor coming up with something similar in the meantime, but the refund policy is incredibly good, if something better indeed comes up, it’s easy to get a refund (somewhat doubt that happening at this pricepoint).
I just hope any user supplied designs are heavily curated. The Inventables site is a good example of what happens when it’s fairly open. There’s definitely some good stuff there, but it’s muddied up with lots of…not so good. 
yeah… i would hope a rating system and staff picks would accompany such a thing.
btw, @DeadCrowCustoms, I cannot wrap my mind around what you describe well enough to form a mental image… which makes me VERY eager to see what you accomplish. Sounds innovative.
Hopefully it will work the way I’m planning. With Ti, I’ll be able to do the layering to its full effect…
Yeah, Day said there wold be a high bar to qualify for the store.
We’ll give them till end of June to do this. Oh all right, until December and that’s it!
No it should not be that hard. They have to get into the habit of sorting materials for future sales anyway.
EDIT: In fact, the metrics they get on people’s preferences for material types should be very valuable to them and might just avoid a supply-demand mismatch when 10000 Glowforges hit the streets. Dan would know this - he’s big on metrics.
If you take a look at shapeways.com, its pretty well done and all crowd driven (3d printing services). Im hoping they have a similar set up. The ability to have a store and drive repeat business would be sweet. Also similar to etsy, where the barrier to post something isnt prohibitively large, but just enough to keep you from posting garbage.
We could easily exchange designs on this forum just not for profit, a simple etsy shop would take care of the people that want to make money on designs. I don’t really want to see glowforge turn into a Walmart one stop shop. They will have to spend more time dealing with complaints about someone else’s designs and download links than working on upgrades and tweets for the unit themselves.
Wait, I’m a bit slow on the uptake. I get it now. I am already getting a free $50 to choose whatever I want from the catalog. Duh, Rebecca.
Thanks.