Case study · My own product

DesignerBee

DesignerBee is my own product: free design tools for people who have never designed anything. Pick a project, move a few sliders, watch it change in 3D, and download a file that is ready for a 3D printer or a laser cutter. No account, no upsell, no watermark. For anyone without a machine, it points to the library makerspace nearby, or makes the piece and ships it.

Free and open to anyone. Visit designerbee.build (opens in a new tab)

The box generator: presets and sliders on the left, a live 3D preview of a box with its inside and outside measurements on the right — The box generator: sliders on the left, the box changing in 3D on the right.

The spirograph set designer drawing a star-shaped pattern inside a toothed ring, with tabs for 3D printing and laser cutting — A spirograph set you design, then print or cut.

The lithophane generator turning a pumpkin photo into a curved 3D relief — A photo becomes a lithophane that glows when lit.

What it does

Sliders, not software
Each tool starts from a few presets and a handful of sliders. A live 3D preview shows sizes in inches or millimeters, so a first-timer sees exactly what they will get before downloading.
Files that just work
3D files open in any common slicer. Laser files carry exactly two colors, one for cut and one for engrave, so the machine software never guesses, and a check script tests real exports for it.
Nothing to sign up for
No account and no email to download. Photos a visitor uses in the lithophane, jigsaw or agamograph tools are never stored.
Share a design with a link
Any design can be shared as a link that reopens it with the same settings. The link is checked against each tool’s own settings, so a hand-crafted link cannot inject anything.
No machine? Two ways forward
"Don’t have a 3D printer?" points to the nearest free library makerspace on the map. If there is none nearby, the piece can be ordered: the price is measured from the design file itself, in the browser and again on the server, so the price shown is the price charged.
Feedback that reaches the maker
A "Loving it? Stuck? Got an idea?" button on every tool sends notes straight to my own dashboard, where each one becomes a card to answer.