How I Design Products for
My Glowforge Business
Today I'm going to show you how I design new products for my Glowforge business! First, I'll decide what I want to make for example, maybe I want to make a necklace or a pin and I'll try to think about what is selling well in my store. For example say cactus stud earrings are selling really well then maybe I'll want to make cactus dangle earrings. I also use a website called EtsyHunt.com where you can look up the analytics of other products and stores so you can see what's selling well and what's popular.
This site is free to use and if you click on products you can type in a specific product type and it will list out the current best sellers you can even see the number of sales the product has had in the past seven days and their total sales. I decided I want to make acrylic dangle earrings so I'll check out all the ideas that I have for those. I keep a running list on Asana.com of all my product ideas. I decided to design snake plants dangle earrings.
Next, I'll do a rough sketch of the design. These earrings will consist of two pieces. The top will be printed on green acrylic and the bottom on a yellowish gold acrylic. There will be two holes and a jump ring that joins the acrylic together and I'll be using gold earring wires.
Doing the sketch helps me to figure out if I need to order any materials to make the product. I order most of my materials from Inventables.com, Etsy or Amazon and depending on what color acrylic that I'm looking for I've realized that sometimes I need to do some hunting on all three of these sites. For wood I always order from Inventables.com because I've realized that it's usually cheaper and more likely to be in stock than the proofgrade Glowforge material.
Now it's time to create the design. I start by creating my design with the iPad Pro using the Apple pencil and I use a drawing app called ProCreate which can be purchased from the app store for $10.
I'm someone that has a hard time just drawing straight from my head so I like to pull photos from google for inspiration. I look for both realistic photos and illustrations. I always create my own unique design because you should obviously never copy someone's work. With these snake plants I might see a pot that I like in one photograph and the way the leaves are designed in an illustration and then be inspired to create my own version of those. Once I find my inspo photos I drop them into my artboard in procreate and minimize them in the corner to use for reference.
My favorite brush to use for sketching is this one I purchased called the cartoon sketch pencil by BJ Dell I've noticed that I don't put as much pressure on myself to draw perfectly when I'm using a brush that has a rough sketchy look to it.
First, I like to create a basic shape for the design and then I draw somewhat within those parameters.
As I'm drawing I'm trying to create a design that is fairly simple. I don't want to overcrowd the earrings with too much detail.
Here I'm creating all the parts that will be engraved.
I wasn't happy with the pot shape so I reworked it a bit. Once I'm done with the design I lower the opacity of the layer and create a new one on top of it. Next I switch my brush to something that will give me cleaner lines. I like to use a brush called Colomono by Holly Pixels for this. Now I'm drawing over the original Illustration to create a more finalized design and reworking anything that I don't like about it.
Like here I edited the pot again so the bottom looks more flat.
And here I decided I wanted the leaves to be a bit more jagged.
When I'm done with the design I export it over from my iPad to my computer to vectorize. Next, I'm on my computer vectorizing the design with the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator.
If you want a detailed tutorial on vectorizing I have another video on my channel called "Make an SVG file for Glowforge" Once I'm done vectorizing I print the design out onto a regular sheet of paper to make sure I like the size.
Next, I upload the vectorized design to the Glowforge app for printing I'm using the proofgrade settings for medium clear acrylic.
The final step is to assemble the earrings!
Ta da! That's how I design new products 🙂 Thanks for reading!
If you're in the market for a Glowforge you can use my referral code to get anywhere from $125-$500 off (depending on which model you get), and I'll get paid that amount as well!
Here is my referral code link: Glowforge Discount