Suuz is a new Dutch online service for designing personalized jewellery. The company – founded by five former Technical University of Delft students – first launched its site in a beta phase in February, but has now launched the full version of the service. The core idea is simple – Suuz enables users to customize the products – jewellery from different categories – according to their needs and personal tastes and then order the 3D printed products directly to their front door.
The product range from Suuz at this point is not overwhelmingly complex – the categories include two different kind of rings and beads – all with the customization aspect related to the ability to personalize text and applied font style, which in fact form the most of the actual ring/bead’s final design. Other tweakable components include the jewellery’s material – ranging from gold plated and full silver options to plastic in all colors of the rainbow as cheaper options – and naturally the diameter of the ring, with sizes 14 mm to 21mm available. The prices are of course heavily dependant on the chosen material – e.g. a gold plated ring will cost €139, but in nylon can be purchased for €19.
When looking at Suuz at this stage, they seem to have incorporated service elements from two market leading 3DP companies – Thingiverse and Shapeways – into their model. The ease of customization is particularly reminiscent of the first company: e.g. creating the text into the .stl model via closed text boxes and adding the user created designs automatically to the gallery (if not unchecking the respective box) – two functions which are basically what the various customizable ring creators already provide at Thingiverse. Also, with no specific information on the actual manufacturing processes of Suuz available on their website, the latter company – Shapeways, might could well provide the 3D printing fulfillment of the also Dutch-native Suuz jewellery. This would, imo, be a positive due to Shapeways’ proven track record.
Even though Suuz has created a solid foundation for the company, in order to succeed in the long run they could benefit from a stronger and differentiating angle. Whether or not they are even planning to expand their portfolio to cover all relevant jewellery categories, enable the customization engine to affect more than just the text and material i.e. the shape itself is unknown/unpublished – natural for a brand new project – but one thing is for sure – 3D printable jewellery and a simplified online browser-based customization such as this should be a part of most traditional jeweller’s offering as well. It wouldn’t be contradictory to the handcraft aspect nor interfere with the daily business, but could easily be operated on the side with just a few resources. The jewellery sector could very well be the leading example business of how 3D printing and traditional manufacturing can co-exist peacefully together and actually create synergy rather than cannibalize one another if placed on the same roster.
Source: Suuz
Hi Juho, I’m one of the five TU Delft guys 🙂 Nice article! And I totally agree, software like this could and should be implemented a lot more, personalization is the future. Why all wear the same stuff? And yes we are planning to broaden our product range.. a lot! 😉
Keep up the good work!
All the best,
Frens,
and the rest of the SUUZ team
Hi Frens – Thanks for the info, I’m looking forward to seeing how your portfolio will develop in the future – keep the evolutive processes of expanding and experimenting going!
Hello Juho, 3D printing and traditional jewellery manufacturing do already co-exist peacefully together still mostly with casting as an intermediate stage (and constraint). Interestingly at a masterclass talk in 1990, goldsmith Stuart Devlin described a scenario of customisation, not online but on computers within jewellery shops, and using 3D printing and casting. Now with 3D printers that print directly in precious metals such as ConceptLasers printers there is even more synergy between ‘new technology’ and traditional craftmanship.
Frens, if you are using Shapeways, persuade them to invest in 3D printing silver as this is more accessible generally than gold and a growing number of jewellers would welcome a service of this kind to get their designs made. Attached is a 3D printed titanium wedding ring (by i.materialise) with hand wrought gold engagement ring that I created for my daughter using my company’s 3D modelling package. More on Anarkik3D’s website as 3D printing and the smaller scale and added value of jewellery are perfect partners.
Hello Anarkik3D,
What a beautiful ring!
And you are right of course, it has been used in the branch for quite some time. And I totally agree with you on synergy between new tech en craftmanship 🙂 Unique pieces, that is what its all about…
The “new” part of our system is that the necessary 3D models, are generated automatically: no 3D modeling engineer needed 🙂 Just the input from the user. For our rings that input is text, but for the exo-l (an ankle brace we help to develop @ http://www.exo-l.com ) the input is a 3D scan for example. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.. the coming months we expect to launch a couple of new input types to make it even more fun to design your own pieces – without 3D-moddeling skills whatsoever.. we aren’t all gifted 3D-modelers like yourself 😉
The problem with printing in precious metals, over printing a wax mould is mainly a cost issue. Powdered silver and gold is rather expensive, compared to the “old fashioned” method. But it does offers some distinct advantages. For example the possibility to print hinges, other moving parts and complex inner structures (more complex than you can achieve by casting). I’ve seen some real cool examples in real live – but expect a big price-tag. An other disadvantage is the finish – to obtain a quality like your example you still need a craftsman to do the finishing touches…