We love featuring exciting designs on the Thingiverse homepage. It shows everyone a snapshot of the innovative and beautiful 3D designs being dreamed up by our community. It also gives credit to some of the members who are choosing to share their hard work with everyone else in the community. That generosity of spirit is what Thingiverse is all about, and highlighting the people who exemplify it is really the least we can do to show our appreciation.
If you visit Thingiverse frequently (and we hope you do), you’ve noticed the “Featured Things” carousel. Maybe you’ve even wondered, “Could my thing ever be featured?” We put this blog post together to let you know what we look for when we feature designs.
Impressive Design
Something that prints in place and in one piece never fails to impress us. Things that are fresh and new are great. So are things that are beautiful or cleverly designed. That said, it doesn’t need to be a completely new idea; we love to see what you’ve derived your design from, too.
Concise Name
Want people to remember what your thing is called? Want them to tweet about how amazing it is? Make it easy for them. Something like “Cat Hat” works better than “Little Hat for My Pet Cat – CUTE!”
Photos
A simple photo or two of your thing can inspire people to like, collect, download and print it. We want the community to be able to print your designs successfully, and a photo of a print is proof that it works. If your thing has moving parts or a dynamic application, why not take a video, too?
Thing Info
What inspired you to make this thing? What went into its development? The details of your process are very interesting to your fellow makers on Thingiverse.
Category, Tags, and License
Be sure to carefully select a license. This instructs others in how they should attribute, display, and use your design and the real-life prints of your design – it’s incredibly important. Also, don’t forget to choose a category and tag your design to help people find your design later on.
Thorough Instructions
Help people print your design without problems by including the optimum infill, shells, and layer height. Should they use a raft or supports? Is there a best way to arrange the pieces on the build plate? Try to think of all the questions people might ask and address them ahead of time.
Sources
Give credit to the people whose designs you derived inspiration, information, or design ideas from. Doing so keeps Thingiverse a community where people can trust each other enough to share their ideas, and that’s really the most important thing to all of us.
You!
Upload a profile image and cover image, and include a description of yourself. We want to showcase the kinds of people who make our community so incredible. Knowing a bit about you helps do that. Make sure to link to your website, Twitter profile, and Instagram account so community members can tag you when they talk about your work.
Do all of the things we feature follow this advice perfectly? Nope. But we want to give you an general idea of what we’re looking for when we choose who sits in the spotlight.
What kind of designs do you most like to see in the Featured carousel?