With state-of-the-art 3D scanning and color printing technology pop-up studio Twinkind produces mini 3D-printed figurines of yourself and your pets. The custom and eerily life-like products are produced with a multi-camera system that many know as the Matrix Effect. The photogrammetry 3D scanner, built specifically by the Twinkind team, captures an entire 3D scan of any object as quick as you can blink your eyes.
While a 3D scan can only capture models forms, the team then uses post-production to exact the details in order for a figurine to look as real as possible. Post scan and design enhancement, the form is 3D printed to move from digital into a tangible model. As if magic the figurine grows from what seems like air into a real world product to hold, display, hug, or throw pending on your intentions with the figurine.
Design that inspires us is always worth sharing. Not always a startup or dedicated to building a product, but an idea that displays delightful imagery, thought provoking graphics, or curates the way art impacts our daily lives is always worth noting.
NYC Type is the collection developed by Matthew Anderson and Daniel Hunninghake concerned with showcasing the role typography plays in the life of New York City. Around since 2007, we just stumbled on this community-showcased website that goes beyond tailoring images of New York typography, but gives us a glimpse of various voices and perspectives to piece together a story and history of an incredibly diverse city.
We’ve been discussing “swag” in our office this past week as a few co-tenants begin their startup marketing launch with contest giveaways and prizes. While sharing ideas from pencils and sunglasses to bobble heads and life-size huggable fur mascots the realization became that a lot of startups run with the typical instead of the creative. Budgets always play a role in picking the right marketing pieces, however leaving an impression is just as vital. While trying to figure out what might work best we threw out the idea of foldable characters. We rarely see these mini lovable creatures at startup events, but what better way to share your startup then with a foldable likeness of the founders or a brand element itself.
We took a look at Foldable.Me last October which became a favorite amongst many through the incredible work of Mint Digital. The 4 inch tall cardboard mini-person can be customized to your likeness or brand needs by giving it different skin colors, hair, facial features and what ever other quirks make for you and your brand memorable. We’ve just ordered our own in the likeness of our founder Jay Kapadia, which will be shipped in 1 – 3 weeks, stay tuned for an update. And If you’re a company that wants a branded Foldable or needs to make a bulk order just email services@foldable.me. Foldable.Me doesn’t have to be a singular piece specific to you, it really can be an army of swag pieces to share at your next event.
Every now and again an idea comes along, usually brought into existence by a startup, that really makes you sit back and go “wow.” Waygo has definitely created one of those ideas. Essentially, they’ve built an app where you can point a smartphone camera at Chinese characters, and have it appear on your phone in English. This isn’t science fiction – it is a real, working app.
In this TechCrunch comments thread, one user suggested that this technology has been in existence for quite some time, but as another responded, it’s also technology that has been applied to Spanish and English – two languages that share many more similarities with each other than Chinese and English. To be able to translate between languages with a completely different alphabet is an astonishing feat, and Waygo have pulled it off with aplomb.
The Wake App by Tiny Hearts launched not too long ago and took the idea of alarm-based apps and applied design with movement controls to make waking up easier and set the bar for alarm-app design. That same method of thinking has come to play with Shake Time. Timer apps are stale to put it mildly; Shake Time takes a minimalistic approach to make time tracking simpler.
Instead of clicking interfaces the easy-to-use timer uses gestures to control the applications functions. A shake adds seconds, a movement toward you adds intervals, and gestures turn off the timer. A flat UI, minimal button controls and a well-designed display encompass Shake Time to be an app worth noting.
One of the issues on sites like The Fancy, Pinterest, Svpply and others is besides the incredible discoveries and imagery, there are often dead-ends to products that don’t exist, aren’t available to everyone in every location, or take weeks to ship (like those on Fancy). Canopy is a better way to discover products with a recommendation engine all their own – one that was driven by close friends (or better known as people worth trusting). And they wanted everything to be readily available on Amazon, so they knew it had the lowest price and the fastest shipping possible. The result: Canopy.
Created to help you open your eyes to the most useful, beautiful and well-designed products on Amazon. The site offers hand-picked and highly recommended products. Taking a snippet from the likes of Pinterest and Fancy, you can also use their Chrome extension to search and recommend your own Amazon products. Instead of searching on platforms for products that don’t have purchase destinations or links that lead to nowhere, Canopy shares from a reliable marketplace that provides low prices and what could be the fastest shipping.
You spend, weeks, months, and sometimes years building your product and vision. While facing many challenges and obstacles, yet when your startups’ product or service is ready to be consumed by the masses even more challenges and obstacles show face. Having a startup that everyone knows about is the next step in gaining success. While outlets like New-Startups.com and the other startup focused content publishers love to share innovative ideas there still is a need for marketing assets despite a limited budget after forging savings into building a passion.
“Swag” has become the term of choice when describing a startups go-to way to connect their offering with those ready to use or for building brand awareness. Custom stickers, t-shirts, mugs, pens, and whatever we think might be “cool” at the moment helps startups cost effectively promote a brand to a community, customers and even staff. “When people are passionate about a product they have built or use, then they love a tangible reinforcement of that company (e.g. swag)” shares Andrew Wtikin, Founder and CEO of StickerYou.
One of the many advantages of running a startup means working from home or with a team around the globe. But with that advantage comes many disadvantages: figuring out a robust project management tool that isn’t overwhelming yet still useful, delivering assets for the entire team to use in a fast cloud network, or simply collaborating in a team environment all at once quickly. Skype calls and video conferencing tools help bridge teams together for discussion, but are they the most effective for online working with a remote team?
Sqwiggle is remote working, made awesome. The web and desktop app provides a playground for video collaboration and a stream to share assets, code, or general discussion in real-time. The “always on” video workroom gives remote teams the ability to communicate at any without the crazy background noise and high bandwidth usage of classic video conferencing apps. When you want to speak with someone, just click and start talking – it’s as simple as tapping a colleague on the shoulder and saying ‘hey’.
