I have no solution, but I have two remarks:
- first, it should also work for co-creators: if I design, say, a die but I do not want to customize it because I have no time to do so (or because I do not like to interact with customers
), I would like to be able to delegate that task to another designer
- second, the business model of Shapeways must be maintained: I give a license of my design to Shapeways (not to another designer) and in exchange Shapeways (not another designer) gives me a royalty. The final customers must be client of Shapeways only.
Oh, actually I have perhaps a solution
One possibility could be to extend the (not yet implemented but long awaited) notion of
collection: a design made of different parts (for example because they have too many faces to be only one, or because they are made of different materials).
If the implementation of the collection is "transparent" to the customer - that is if it is so easy to buy a collection compared to buying a single object that you cannot tell the difference, then we could imagine
"virtual" collections where the "parts" are actually the different work of each designer (2 or more!). Each part has its own markup going to the appropriate designer.
Does that make sense?
Magic
PS: this leads to another question: when collections will be implemented, would it be possible that each part of the collection would be made by a different designer? For instance, would a customer be allowed to order a marble holder that I designed along with a marble made by someone else?