Designer For Hire Program UPDATE!

Discussion in '3D Design Requests' started by Lauren, Apr 20, 2016.

  1. Lauren
    Lauren Member
    Exciting news in the custom design world of Shapeways! I'm happy to tell you that today Shapeways has launched an updated and expanded version of the Designer For Hire program. This program connects people with product ideas but who have little 3D modeling knowledge with skilled 3D designers to help bring those ideas to life. Since launching this program about two years ago, the number of requests coming in daily has outstripped the availability of the designers currently in the program. A more robust platform was needed for these talented designers to display their skills and services. That new platform is now live and all qualified designers are invited to sign up for the program.

    How does a designer qualify? Community members who have an open shop, have first and last name visible in their profile and who have successfully shipped three different models or model versions will be able to post their services for hire. These checks have been put in place to ensure familiarity with the Shapeways system. Having a shop makes it easy for the final design to be printed and shipped to the client without the designer having to manage those details.

    An important program like this needs a dedicated manager and that's me! I'm Lauren, Design Evangelist here at Shapeways, and I'm thrilled to officially be the point of contact for questions, feedback and support of the program. Before working at Shapeways I was with Apple and Etsy.com helping their creative communities. I also teach in the Design + Technology MFA program at Parsons School of Deign here in NYC. I have spent the past three years at Shapeways teaching 3D modeling and coding so that new users can bring their ideas to life.

    To join the program and start designing you can check your profile settings here: https://www.shapeways.com/settings/designer-for-hire

    If you're someone looking to hire a designer you can do that here: https://www.shapeways.com/hire/designer

    As a starting point, read this article from our blog archive about how to successfully collaborate on design, The Three C's of Designing: https://www.shapeways.com/blog/archives/18445-the-three-cs-o f-hiring-a-designer.html
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 20, 2016
  2. Donno
    Donno Member
    I'm a designer for hire, but the new system has grouped all the design disciplines together in one category.. This means that there are 9 pages of designers..... If you are on the ninth page, you are not going to get any work, and those on page one will be overworked.... .... Please change this system so that people can search for designers in categories, which will be much fairer for all.
     
  3. elopez3d
    elopez3d Well-Known Member
    By default we're grouped into all but you can sort at the top of the page by service/category.
     
  4. Donno
    Donno Member
    Perhaps it is as simple as changing the default to sort by service/category?
     
  5. elopez3d
    elopez3d Well-Known Member
    I don't think it's that simple.
    I think it's set to all for the reason of:

    If I'm new to Shapeways and 3d printing I'm just looking for general information.
    I probably don't even know what categories and services any freelancers have to offer.

    If I am knowledgeable, and want someone to do miniatures, I will then click on that category.
     
  6. mkroeker
    mkroeker Well-Known Member
    Part of the perception might come from the fact that the top of the list stays (mostly) the same no matter what combinations of category&service one selects, so if
    your device/screen settings only allow viewing of the first six entries there is often no immediate feedback that anything changed.
    (And selecting additional subtopics will not change results unless one conciously unselects a previously marked field). Perhaps something as simple as a status
    line showing "32 out of 123 entries match your criteria" displayed between the menu and the results would help ? (Or introduction of further criteria to refine the search - geographic location (by continent only) should play no role I guess, but perhaps language skills might be important to customers who have a hard time putting their idea into foreign words ?)
     
  7. elopez3d
    elopez3d Well-Known Member
    I think this is a good suggestion.

    Perhaps changing services and categories to checkboxes would also help.

    It would also be interesting to know how the first page is sorted.
     
  8. Zandoria
    Zandoria Active Member
    How often are the order of the designers re-shuffled?
    When I show up on the first page, I get 1-3 requests for a quote every day! But when I show up on page 8, I get 0 requests...

    Have you given any consideration to ranking the designers? Maybe some sort of rating that the person hiring you could use as feedback ( which would also help the next person wanting to hire a designer.)
     
  9. gaiam
    gaiam Member
    Hi there,

    I started with the designer for hire program and it was great for the first few weeks, I am working remotely at the moment as I am moving country so these small jobs a huge help with a few bucks here and there.
    I have also noticed that as I got pushed back to the 8th page! I have got less requests and 0 activity..
    Is there any way to change this? make it equal?
    think something there needs to change, maybe sort especially by jewellery design to actual jewellery designers like myself?

    Thanks
     
    jordanbanks likes this.
  10. designsoul
    designsoul Well-Known Member
    I think I am speaking for all of us that ranking, searching by keyword and random shuffles, maybe paid self-promotions, would be great additions to the Designer for Hire system.
     
    Zandoria likes this.
  11. Zandoria
    Zandoria Active Member
    Maybe we could rank by price too? Like a 4 Star hotel or restaurant?
     
  12. jordanbanks
    jordanbanks Well-Known Member
    I agree, I started Shapeways Hire A Designer and it was great but now I get few to no emails and the people who email me say they contact 40-60 designers and get no reply maybe take off those who do not respond or push them back.
     
  13. SamarthMK
    SamarthMK Member
    I like the idea of breaking up designers based on their (designer's) interest, so categories like: transport, accessories, hobby, electronics, and what not. Similar to what are on the shapeways shop page.

    After a few years of not being here, mostly because I was busy with product design at other companies, I'm back on shapeways, and would love to help anyone who needs some CAD work done quick n cheap.
     
    Zandoria likes this.
  14. NingHuaDesign
    NingHuaDesign Member
    Haven't been getting works for a long time since I was moved from page 2 to 3 to 4 and so on. If customers don't know which category or designer to choose, then I think it's better to offer them the category in the beginning than having them wondering in between pages.
    The category should go in two sub categories each, and each designer is allowed to choose no more than two categories.
     
  15. Youknowwho4eva
    Youknowwho4eva Well-Known Member
    Ning, we'd love to serve you better! Hopefully we can do that with the changes we're making!
     
  16. NingHuaDesign
    NingHuaDesign Member
    Would be excited to see what's gonna happen !
     
  17. Zandoria
    Zandoria Active Member
    So what has happened with designer-for-hire?
    The link takes you to “Design with Shapeways” where you enter information about your project and your email address.

    What happens with these requests? There is no way for someone to browse designers looking for someone by category... Is Shapeways trying to match up designers to the requests?

    It would be nice to get more information regarding your plans, and how it is supposed to work. It feels like we are in Limbo...
     
    Peter3D likes this.
  18. Peter3D
    Peter3D Well-Known Member
    Why is there totally no activity anymore on the Designers for hire?
     
    Zandoria likes this.
  19. Ontogenie
    Ontogenie Well-Known Member
    It appears that Shapeways has partnered with Zverse.com for all custom design requests. I submitted a request for a design that clearly should have come to me and maybe a handful of other designers (a science thing), gave an alternate email, and the only "designer" that contacted me was Zverse. Designers for Hire is dead.
     
    Peter3D likes this.
  20. Zandoria
    Zandoria Active Member
    I hope that that they aren't doing that exclusively--it would be a slap in the face for the designers who have been working with Shapeways
     
    jordanbanks and Peter3D like this.