Success at Ponoko

With over 220 unique designs, Jon Cantin is the most prolific user of the Ponoko system - he knows it inside out.

So when he offered to show us how he shaved 71% off his making costs on a recent project, we were excited to hear more.

Here’s what Jon came up with …

Design File Optimization: Spend a little time to save a lot of money!

Ponoko is a wonderful system to make and sell products throughout the world without having to be concerned about the nuances of manufacturing and logistics, where the only cost of entry is providing a design file. Although I will focus on EPS file optimization using Adobe Illustrator, the same ideas can be applied to other files types and programs (like SVG and the free Inkscape and Raven design tools). 

What is EPS? 

EPS stands for Encapsulated PostScript which was developed by Adobe in the 1980s as a single universal format for printers to accept copy from any computer.

Saving money 101

With Ponoko, you have direct influence over how much things will cost to be made. Short of joining Designmake Prime (which I will discuss later in this post), optimizing your EPS files is the best way to save you a substantial amount of money. You can then either pocket it or pass it onto your customers.

Here’s the story of how I saved 87% off the making cost of one of my latest products - Medieval Castle Walls B.

Step 1: Align your pieces

Before you start any file optimization, figure-out roughly the smallest material sheet size all of your pieces will fit on (P1, P2 or P3). In my case the choice was obvious - it’s a P3. This helps to give you a visual representation of how many sheets will be required, hence how much your final piece will cost.

For example - this guy’s going to cost a fortune without optimization!

Step 2: Fill up the sheet!

Even if you have only got a small design with pieces filling up a corner of a P2 sized sheet, you want to pack the pieces as tightly together as possible. Scattering your pieces around the sheet uses up more laser time (costing you money) and eliminates the possibility of having two or more products (same or different) on each sheet. Leaving white space on an EPS file should be avoided as much as possible.

Good example - there’s no room left on this sheet:

Step 3: Review your design

Review your file under high magnification from one end of the sheet to the other, then at a few random spots in between. It’s all too easy to accidentally place one ‘path’ onto the ‘path’ of another part, causing a laser cut where none was intended. Incidentally, I do this review again before submitting an order with the EPS file that’s hosted in ‘My Designs’ within my Ponoko account, just to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

For example - can you spot the problem?

Step 4: Remove doubled-up lines

Alright, you got things packed tighter than a sardine in a can … great! Now for the fun part - removing all of those doubled-up lines! It’s best to do this after you have fitted all of your pieces onto the sheets and you don’t see any further position modifications taking place. Although there is an automated method for doing this in Illustrator using Effect > Pathfinder > Outline, I usually find additional ‘path’ mistakes by the work involved with manually deleting paths.

For example - this cleaned up nicely:

Step 5: Preview Format - use ‘None’

If you consider ‘time is money’, being able to upload your files in quick succession is a must. For Adobe Illustrator, there is an option to save an image preview. Choosing NOT to save a preview dropped my file sizes down dramatically. For the P3 file you see in the screen shots above, going from a preview format of (8 bit) TIFF to ‘None’ brought the file down from 5.28mb to 457kb! The result? MUCH faster file upload times.

Step 6: Join Prime (and make it)

Just by joining Prime you can save a ton of cash, so it’s a bit of a no-brainer. I was lucky enough to get one of the founding Prime member accounts when this service was first launched.

But this new Value Prime offer is an instant 56.5% saving off the making costs - which is a game changer too.

So here’s my final result - the transformation of 2D plywood into a 3D object can be rather dramatic:

Seriously … how much can you REALLY save by optimizing your design files?

Using my Medieval Castle as the example, I saved 20% in making costs alone. Achieved just by spending a few hours on the design file. This may not sound like very much but it can make the difference between doing a project and not, and between setting a realistic retail price, and not.

In addition to this saving, my file optimization also cut the cost of materials by reducing the number of P3 sheets from 10 to 7. And this had the flow on effect of reducing the shipping costs too.

So by the time everything is said and done, I managed to save at least a third off my total production costs by optimizing my design. 

And is Designmake Prime worth it?

Absolutely!

My Medieval Castle retails for just $499.95. But without Prime, this price is north of $1,000 to make the same profit margin.

And then there’s all of the fringe benefits like priority making times, unlimited materials selection and pre-purchase design consultations to give me peace of mind before I spend any cash.

The Summary - you are in control of your costs

Optimizing your design files and hooking up to Prime is the best way you can control the costs to get your stuff made.

In fact I saved a whooping 71% off my making costs for this Medieval Castle.

And if you think you can find a better saving anywhere else (first, please let me know!), just remember all of the time and hassle you also save by using Ponoko’s online automated system and their super support crew. It’s priceless.

Jon