Product design & development
Tell us what you need.
We will tell you if we can make it.
We turn ideas into real, functional, visually striking products. A fully developed concept or a sketch on the back of an envelope - both are a normal starting point. One-off builds, replacement parts, branded runs for a business, custom sculpture, or a product collection you want to take to market.
What people actually ask us for
Custom work is a large part of what we do, and it arrives in six fairly predictable shapes. If yours is not on this list, it is still worth asking - the odd ones are usually the interesting ones.
A replacement part
A bracket, a clip, a knob, a gear, a holder for something discontinued a decade ago. Usually the fastest and cheapest job on this list, and the one that saves an entire appliance, toy or piece of furniture from the bin. Photograph yours beside a ruler and send it over - we can often work from that alone.
Branded pieces for a business
Desk gear, award and recognition pieces, client gifts, organisers for an office move, trade show giveaways. Logos can be embossed or debossed into most designs. We will tell you before you commit whether fine detail and small text will read cleanly at the size you want, rather than shipping two hundred disappointing ones.
A small production run
Twenty to a few hundred units for a shop, a market stall, an event or a product launch. Printed in one batch so colour and finish are consistent across the whole run - something warehouse stock genuinely cannot promise, because you get whichever dye lot is left.
A product that does not exist yet
You have the idea and maybe a sketch. We model it, print a handful to hold and test, revise, and only then talk about volume. Almost every design changes after the first physical version - which is precisely why we make one before anyone commits money to a run.
Custom art and sculpture
Personalised sculptures, statement objects, display pieces and larger decorative installations made for a specific room, venue or project. This is where printing genuinely outruns other processes - complex organic geometry costs us nothing extra, where a mould would make it impossible.
Displays and retail fixtures
Risers, stands, sign holders, product displays and shelf systems sized to your actual shelf rather than the nearest available. If you have measured a space and cannot find anything that fits, that is exactly the job printing is for.
Build it. Then test it.
When you are developing something new, holding it changes everything. A drawing can hide a wall that is too thin, a grip that is uncomfortable, a lid that binds, a part that looks balanced on screen and tips over on a desk. You find all of it in about ninety seconds with a physical version in your hand.
Our production is flexible enough to make that cheap. We can print a prototype, change it that afternoon, and print the revision the same week. No tooling to re-cut, no minimum order to justify the change, no supplier to negotiate with.
That makes us a practical partner for inventors, designers, small businesses and anyone who has got further than an idea but not as far as a factory. Most projects we take on go through two or three physical revisions before anybody talks about quantity, and every one of those revisions makes the final product better.
It also protects you from the expensive mistake: committing to a production run of a design that nobody has actually used yet. We would far rather sell you three prototypes now and two hundred units later than the other way round.
Business and commercial projects
A large share of our work comes from companies rather than individuals, and the reasons are usually practical rather than creative.
Quantities that do not suit a factory. Most manufacturers are not interested in forty units, and the ones that are will charge a setup fee that dwarfs the order. We have no setup fee, so forty is an ordinary Tuesday.
Parts you can no longer buy. Equipment outlives its spare parts. When a supplier discontinues a component, printing a replacement is often faster and cheaper than replacing the whole unit - and we can improve the part that kept failing while we are at it.
Things that have to match. Office fit-outs, event sets, retail displays. Printed together in one run, in one material, they are consistent in a way that separately-sourced items never are.
Lead times you can plan around. We quote a dispatch date conservatively and hold to it. A missed date on a corporate order is worse than a slightly longer quoted one, so we do not quote optimistically to win the job.
How a custom job runs
- 01
You send the details
What it is, what it attaches to, how many, and the date you need it by. Photos with a ruler for scale beat a paragraph of description every time.
- 02
We quote for real
A price and a lead time we can hold to, usually within a business day. If the honest answer is that printing is the wrong process, you get that instead.
- 03
We model it
You see a render, and for anything fitted you approve it before a machine starts. Changes at this stage cost nothing.
- 04
One gets made first
For anything new or fitted we print a single piece and you confirm it. Nobody wants fifty of a part that is 0.4mm out.
- 05
The run goes out
Produced in one batch for consistency, finished and checked by hand, boxed and shipped tracked across Canada.
- 06
It stays on file
The design does not get discontinued. Reorders are faster and cheaper, and a replacement in three years is a phone call.
What it costs, honestly
Printing charges mostly for machine time and material, not for setup. A small part that runs in an hour is inexpensive. A large sculptural piece that occupies a machine for a day and a half is not. Size and print time drive the number far more than complexity does - intricate geometry is effectively free, which is exactly where printing beats moulding.
There is no tooling charge and no minimum, so the first unit costs roughly what the tenth does. Quantity discounts come from batching and handling rather than amortising a mould, which is why they start at three units instead of three thousand.
Design time is quoted separately and only when there is design work to do. If you send a finished model, you are paying for production alone.
When we will tell you to go elsewhere. Past roughly a couple of thousand identical units, injection moulding becomes cheaper per piece even after the tooling bill. We will say so rather than take the order, and we will tell you what to ask a moulder for.
The same goes for parts that must be food-safe, hold hot liquid, carry real structural load, or sit in direct sun for years in the wrong material. Printed plastic is excellent at a lot of things and genuinely poor at a few, and pretending otherwise only produces returns.
Being told no early is cheaper for you than finding out after a production run. We would rather keep the relationship than win one job.
Why work with us rather than an upload-and-wait print service
You talk to the person printing it
Not a web form and a queue. If a wall is too thin or an overhang will sag, you hear about it before it is printed, not after it arrives broken.
We design as well as print
A photo and a measurement is enough to start. You do not need a finished 3D file and you do not need to know what infill or layer height mean.
Domestic, end to end
Printed and shipped inside Canada. No customs step, no brokerage invoice, no three-week wait on a parcel that left another continent.
It can always be reprinted
The file does not get discontinued. If a piece breaks in two years we still have it and can make another, usually within days.
Custom work is one side of what we do
The other is our own growing collection - home accessories, organisation, lifestyle pieces, gaming and desk products, sculpture, displays and more. Worth a look before you commission something: occasionally the thing you need already exists.
Questions we get before the first job
- Do I need a 3D file?
- No. Most people send photos, a rough sketch or a measured drawing. We model it from there and show you a render before anything is printed.
- Who owns the design?
- If you paid us to design it for you, you do. We will not sell your part in our shop or licence it to anyone else.
- How long does a quote take?
- Usually within one business day. Complicated jobs can take two, and we will tell you if that is the case rather than going quiet on you.
- How long until I have the thing?
- Simple parts are often printed and dispatched within a few business days of approval. New designs that need modelling and a prototype round typically run one to three weeks. Large runs depend on quantity, and we will give you a date rather than a range.
- Can you match a colour?
- Often. Send a photo in daylight and we will tell you which of our materials comes closest, and honestly whether it is close enough to look intentional rather than like a near-miss.
- What is the smallest order you will take?
- One. There is no minimum and no setup fee, which is the whole advantage of printing over moulding.
- Do you sign NDAs?
- Yes, and we are used to it. Say so in your first message and we will sort the paperwork before you send anything sensitive.
- What if the first version is not right?
- That is expected, and it is why we print one first. Revisions during development are part of the job, not a change order with a fee attached.
Let's build something
Send us the awkward one - the part nobody stocks, the piece that is almost right but 8mm too wide, the idea that has been sitting in a notes app for a year. Tell us what it does and what it attaches to, and you will get a straight answer on whether we can make it, what it costs and when it would land.
