The importance of good branding is difficult to explain, let alone measure. Oftentimes it gets overlooked in favor of the more data rich activities within marketing such as paid advertising and content marketing. But a good marketer knows the first thing every customer “feels” when they visit a website, social platform, or even come into contact with a product, is the vibe, the essence, the brand. The brand requires excellent designers, yes, but it also requires leadership with the vision to push it forward. If your CEO or CMO doesn’t have a good eye, it might not matter how talented your creative director is. So when I see good brands I always take a minute to reflect on that, and in this case to give them a shoutout for prioritizing something intangible but oh-so important.
This is not an article about the best products or the most successful companies – although both are probably correlated to some of these brands as well. This article is purely about aesthetics and vibes.
Here are my top 5 3D printer brands…
1. Markforged
Markforged staked their claim on carbon fiber 3D printers and much of their brand reflects that. They use a dark motif with purposefully placed copy, and an electric yellow accent color that catches the eye on social and in ads. While their product lineup may be a bit confusing, they follow the Pro aesthetic of Apple laptops hitting the silver, space gray, and blacks. The content they produce is anchored by real applications and displays hard working carbon fiber and metal parts over clean neutral backgrounds. They’ve also been known to leverage line drawings which nicely reflects the technical mindset of their target audience.
2. Desktop Metal
Desktop Metal always had a vibe. Their clean product photography, dark environments, and neutral web backgrounds flow seamlessly. Their brand name makes it crystal clear that they are the maker of metal 3D printers for the desktop and they 100% get an SEO boost from this. They have products called Shop, Studio, and Fiber – once again on-the-nose of where they belong or what they do. If I’m not mistaken they had some marketing leaders who came over from Apple early on so it’s not a surprise that the brand is so well thought out. The exotic metals are seen in photography but are also a big part of the color palette – along with signature strawberry red that easily catches the eye.
3. Formlabs
Formlabs is king when it comes to resin desktop 3D printer brands. I love how they seem to speak to the individual engineer or designer and I’m pretty sure this very effectively nets them the category lead for sales in the space (in addition to their products being pretty good of course). Form’s use of warm and cool lighting in environmental photography is next level. They love a good clean workbench in a modern product lab which makes their products feel like a professional tool and speaks to a startup’s aspirations. They chose blue as an accent color that perfectly compliments the orange of their 3D printer enclosures and they flip nicely between these accents across their different platforms. They also ship their products in boxes with clean line drawings of the printers themselves – an end-to-end touch that only a handful of brands do well. I will say I am a little sad to see the posts on their IG clutter up with reels – not saying don’t do reels, just saying you don’t need to post every one of them in the Posts section.
4. Mosaic Manufacturing
While this brand may be a bit of a surprise considering the notoriety of the others on this list, Mosaic has done a good job of leveling up a brand from pure consumer to bespoke prosumer. The company has several unique products and they’re showcased well in the rebranding they launched in 2022. While they undoubtedly took a look at Markforged when they were developing the concept, they pulled it off nicely. The mint green accent over the dark motif is eye catching and I would go as far as to say it better reflects a consistent look seen in their products than even Markforged. Typeface is on the lighter side, balanced against the dark hues. The logo appears to be a mosaic of… a mountain? Who knows but it’s kinda cool. While their look has changed, their content still appears to cater mostly to consumers as seen on their Instagram.
5. Carbon
Carbon or as some call it “Carbon3D” is another one of these brands that has had IT since early on (or at least since they landed a mountain of funding). The products themselves were always futuristically curved and stood out from their competitors thanks to clean lines. Where their 3D printers really shine is in the latticed geometries they produce. Sure enough this lattice work can be seen throughout their environmental imagery in an array of products from popular consumer brands. They also boast an impressive array of high production quality videos that are reminiscent of Patagonia or Rivian – bespoke, lifestyle.
This was a tough one to narrow down – and there were no doubt some 3D printer brands that just missed the top 5. Ultimaker for example is undergoing a rebrand merger of two basically opposite brands – not a small undertaking – but has a lot of potential to get back up there. One thing that really stood out to me in this exercise is the popularity of a neutral color palliate with a select accent color – maybe that’s just what speaks to me personally, but I’m sure there are designers out there rolling their eyes and say “yeah that’s basic design”. Also the best and most established brands are able to blend their environmental imagery with their digital colors and motifs. A knock I would say applies to almost all of these 3D printer brands is stagnation. My memory may be a little hazy but several of these haven’t evolved much over the past several years. Then again if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
Either way, let’s give a collective shout out to the designers, marketers, and leaders out there who have taken the time and resources to prioritize good branding.
So there you have it – my top 5 3D printer brands. What do you think? Did I miss any? Did I oversell any?
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