MAQET

We here at MAQET are cat people. We also like dogs. And birds. We’re big fans of animals in general.

But there’s a special place in our hearts for cats. Cats of all kinds. Left to right:

• Typographic cats.
• Vector cats.
• Real cats.
• Katz Deli.
• Cat memes.
• Cat-5 cables.

(We also have a sense of humor.)

All you need is a cat and our tutorial, and you can make an awesome MAQET Valentine’s Day T-shirt bear. There’s no better way to tell your cat how much you love him/her. (Although we highly recommend a can of wet food in conjunction with the gift of a MAQET…)

Find out how to make your own MAQET Valentine T-shirt bears here!

Halloween is one of the best holidays. Creativity and being a maker is out in the open and rewarded with CANDY! You can’t beat that. Also on Halloween, so many of the everyday objects around us become canvases for creativity. I’m blown away by what sculptor Ray Villafane can do with pumpkins! Check out his pumpkin gallery here. For those of you beginning your celebration over the weekend: Happy Halloween from MAQET!

Cheers to Jing Zhang for “building” nearly the entire alphabet with this unique typeface. All the letters (minus a few) can be seen here.

Like everybody in the world, we here at MAQET were deeply saddened by the loss of Steve Jobs this week. I had the good fortune of working with Steve and Apple as a designer in the early 90s. You may remember the first “Lollipop” look of the Apple brand. When I think back now, my memory goes to this one great experience I had directly with Steve. He wanted a old military photo of his wife’s dad standing next to a jetplane retouched. The photo was a mess, and Steve thought proper digital photo retouching couldn’t be done on the Mac (only on an SGI)! I convinced him he was wrong and to let me do the project. I spent some late nights cracking away, with Steve periodically checking in. When it was finished, I had someone drive it to his house just in time. Steve Jobs was tough, but a pat on the back from him felt great.

Of course nowadays, Apple has really set the standard for the design industry both practically and aesthetically. Indeed, the work I did for Steve back in the day makes the work I do now with MAQET possible. Thank you Steve. You are already missed.

This is such a terrific idea. I’ve been wearing glasses since the 2nd grade. (Awwww….) It has taken me many years to arrive at “the pair”. Eyewear isn’t made to last a lifetime: it warps, cracks and gets discolored. (I’ve already “fixed” mine with Fimo and a Sharpie.) I know someday soon I’ll have to retire my signature specs.

Enter Make Eyewear, a new company formed by industrial-design student, David Minich. The site, which launched Monday, offers “Infinitely Customizable Eyewear” made with a Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) machine. You can choose from a series of stock frames for $150 and customize the colors and sizes. Alternatively, you can design your own, or in my case, “clone your own,” frames beginning at $450. Make Eyewear even hooks you up with professional design help.

The RX lenses and spring hinges are sourced elsewhere, but the frames are printed on demand. I’m curious to see how fashionistas take to the “striations” which are a result of the additive manufacturing process. Personally, I don’t like that kind of a look/feel to 3D-printed collectibles and other similar objects, but with glasses, it’s adds a potentially interesting texture.

A large MAKE logo hit on the left side of the frames is perhaps a bit showy, but then again, amidst the rise of “maker culture,” why not show the world what you co-created? It’s very cool to see what other creative companies are doing with 3D-printing technology. I look forward to trying this out.

[via CoDesign]

Andrew Salomone uses a hacked knitting machine from the 80s to “print” digital images onto/into knitted garments. While this would have been a cool enough feat in and of itself, Salomone took it one step further by making his pièce de résistance a Bill Cosby sweater. It doesn’t end there either: Salome’s sweater depicts Bill Cosby wearing a Bill Cosby sweater. That goes deep! The sweater is both the canvas and the subject! He now hopes to achieve full circle by getting a photo of Cosby wearing the Cosby sweater of Cosby wearing a sweater.

Click through for a flashback of Cosby in one of his “iconic” sweaters.

read more »

Amsterdam-based 3D artist, Tristan Bethe has made the impossible: an edible sneaker. Bethe scanned his shoe and had it 3D-printed. He next painted food-safe silicone rubber onto the 3D print of the sneaker. Once dry, the silicone came of the print easily and he just added a few supportive threads to help it keep its shape.

Bethe reports that the thin-walled print also made for a “perfect cookie/meat cutter”. In addition to the bread shoe for the shoeburger, he also made a chocolate shoe, where you can see the detail even better. That’s so cool! See also: The World’s First Chocolate 3D Printer.

Researchers at the UK’s University of Exeter in collaboration with Brunel University and software developer Delcam have developed a 3D printer that uses CHOCOLATE as its medium. They chose chocolate as a way to present the technology in an appealing and safe way to both engineers and the general population.

“What makes this technology special is that users will be able to design and make their own products,” says research leader Dr Liang Hao. “From reproducing the shape of a child’s favorite toy to a friend’s face, the possibilities are endless and only limited by our creativity.”

The team imagines a system where amateur and professional chocolateers alike can sketch out designs, connect to their software, have them 3D printed and collect real custom-designed chocolate.

“This opens up the possibility of a much fuller participation of the consumer in the production process,” said Chief Executive Professor Dave Delpy. “Some people call it co-creation, where the consumer is fully part of the design process.”

I call it tasty technology!

Nope, you’re not looking at a typo: Happy INDEPENDENTS Day is right. Today, we want to give a shout out to all the independent thinkers and doers out there in the world.

Here’s what the two holidays have in common: they’re both about declaring (and then celebrating) independence. Sure, America has its share of problems, but so does every other country. America remains an amazing place where opportunities exist and magical things can happen. There is a ton of creativity within the United States, and MAQET is lucky to be headquartered in San Francisco, arguably one of America’s most diverse and creative cities.

At their cores, both America and MAQET are about freedom of ideas, unhampered creativity, following your dreams and being individuals. OK, so it might not be the Declaration of Independence, but MAQET has a story, too. MAQET was founded on the belief that there shouldn’t be obstacles to making cool, unique and collectible stuff. MAQET is a platform for enabling everyone’s creativity, and we do this without overseas factory assembly lines. We think it’s possible for a small company to play the field with the big guys, as we’ve seen it happen again and again! We make MAQETs right here in California, one piece at a time, just for you.

As independent creatives, we have a feeling that despite the national holiday, you, like us, may be hard at work today. MAQET and our new Fourth of July friend, BOXY SPARKLER, wish you a very Happy Independents Day.

We at MAQET love seeing creativity in unexpected places. Massachusetts-based artist Judith Klausner “enjoys playing with her food, both recreationally and professionally”. For her latest series, Oreo Cookie Cameos, she manages to do both. Kind of makes you feel a little lazy for just eating your cookies, huh? Fun stuff!