This weeks Designer Spotlight focuses on Pete, Daniel, Carl and Rob, a group of four rambling drinkers living in New York City. They make up Gotham Smith, a line of accessories for the fashionable gent.

What's the story behind your designs?

We had long gathered in lower Manhattan for drinks and lively conversation. We found that we shared not only an appreciation of the care that goes into a well mixed cocktail, but we also shared values on what accessories befit a man and tended to complement one another accordingly. Over the course of a year, our conversations flowed into sketches, sketches flowed into models, models flowed into final products, and products flowed into the company that you see today.

After some attempts to build products out of stamped metal and wood, we quickly realized all of the difficulties involved. We had known about Shapeways and 3D printing, but we had never tried it out. We decided to print up some cufflinks for a friend's wedding and immediately loved the instant feedback of 3D printing via Shapeways.

We are fortunate enough to have a resident mad scientist industrial designer in our midst. He actually cut his teeth with SolidWorks through a previous job building a vegetable-based lard factory. He handles the first pass at the 3D model and then we print, discuss, modify and repeat until we feel we have something ready to launch. 

There are a variety of ways that we promote our work. We try to have a strong presence through various digital platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. We do have our own website along with our Shapeways shop to provide even more of the story behind our designs. Probably the biggest thing is that we were written up by many blogs right at launch which gave us a great boost in awareness.

Every designer should constantly be looking at various ways to reach their audience. There are so many platforms out there and you never know which one will be best for your audience until you experiment with many.

The cluster of current fascinations change every few weeks. We love so much obscure stuff that we actually keep a secret tumblr to pass references back and forth amongst the group. In the Shapeways community, Theo Jansen's Animaris Geneticus Parvus is our favorite: it's complex, impossible to understand, and totally awesome to watch crawl around.  We also love the Bugaboo Locking Pin by the Bugaboo Repair Guy. Because it's a real solution to a real problem of modern products made with 3D printing. Simple, elegant, and the kind of thing we can get behind.

We are very interested in adaptive modeling. Perhaps a model changes according to when a customer ordered it or by the number of vowels in their name. Being able to tweak very fine details on a by order basis to give our consumers an even deeper story about their product would be amazing.

The world of 3D printing is so exciting right now. We encourage everyone to talk to as many people as possible, partner with as many people as possible, and be as open as possible so that we can really make sure 3D printing changes the world!

We love to hear that! Check out Gotham Smith's quirky designs on their Shapeways shop or their website.

This weeks Designer Spotlight focuses on Josh Korda, who uses his buddhist practice to inspire his jewelry making. 

I'm Josh Korda, I teach buddhist practice at a few locations in New York City, and have been a freelance art director (web only now) for many, many years. About 6 months ago I taught myself Rhino and then started creating my own 3D designs.

My designs have two primary inspirations: 

1) My buddhist practice (I've been practicing for a very long time). I make rings and pendants conveying some of the core spiritual principles that help me stay calm amidst the challenges of daily life: kindness, meditation, body and breath relaxation, community, reflections on impermanence and so forth.

2) A lot of the rings and bracelets are inspired by the Space Age Designs of the 1960s; futuristic images were in vogue when I was growing up, from TV shows like the Jetsons, sci-fi book covers even the furniture designs of Saarinen. I make a bunch of fun pieces that try to capture the spirit of retro-future.

I was looking for a way to actualize the work I was designing in Rhino that was both affordable and wearable and a  presentable quality. Shapeways was the ideal solution.

How did you learn how to design in 3D?My wife Kathy is an amazing and successful jewelry designer, she's freelanced for virtually every major brand over the years, who uses Rhino and I grew interested in the possibilities of 3D product design. Kathy has a buddhist inspired jewelry brand, MettaMetalworks, and she allows me to contribute and gives me terrific creative feedback.

At this point, as I'm so early in the process of creating jewelry, I'm not actively engaged in promoting the work beyond simply showing some of the pieces, as they arrive from Shapeways, on Facebook. The feedback has been wonderful and people asked if they could buy pieces, so I started my Shapeways shop to make them available.

Who are your favorite designers or artists?

In terms of great jewelry designers, Arman Sarkisyan and Philip Crangi jump immediately to mind. They're amazing, and of course, my wife Kathy's work. There are quite a number of wonderful, inspiring artists who use Shapeways too, Nervous System being my favorites; while their work stays firmly within a set paradigm, what they do they do brilliantly. I've also seen some pieces by Dario Scapitta that are very well considered. I've stumbled upon some designs by GemsBridalJewelry that demonstrate so much 3D skill - they're quite motivating! 

I don't feel limited by the technology at present. I look forward to the print resolution of the stainless and bronze pieces improve a little and I'm really happy with the results of polished sterling silver! 

May all beings be peaceful and find lasting happiness!

Check out Josh's beautiful work at his Shapeways Shop Josh Korda Ornaments, and for further inspiration on Bhuddist teachings you can check out his podcasts on Dharmapunkx or his video talks.