Have you ever thought about doing something good for someone else, without asking for anything in return? Maybe it’s time to fill up your list of good deeds and support a great idea, or better yet, help a fellow photographer make their dreams come true. If you feel like becoming an active member of the worldwide photography community, there is no better way to start than with Kickstarter and Betalist.
In this post you’ll find 10 of the most interesting photography and design related projects that are currently trying to raise funds for development and looking for community feedback. See how your fellow creatives pursuing their dreams and get motivated to implement your own ideas. From photo gadgets to a marketing platform for photographers, in this post you’ll find 10 great concepts to back and draw inspiration from.
1. Defrozo
Defrozo is free to use and enables you to organize images in the cloud, manage your photo website, build relationships with clients, proof and sell prints online, manage your tasks and schedule, as well as create personalized digital products for clients. Everything you need comes bundled in one easy-to-use system which you can access by simply logging in to your Defrozo account.
The project is not just a concept, it’s already available as a public beta. Successful funding will help the developers release the full-featured product faster, but that’s not the only reason they’re running a Kickstarter campaign. The project’s founder, Demetrio Fortman, is encouraging backers to make their contribution into developing Defrozo by providing critiques and feedback. So if you’re struggling to find the right tools to manage your marketing efforts, this is a great opportunity for you to help shape a new tool that meets your needs.
2. Crowdshare
Crowdshare is an open marketplace where creators can share their work and get donations from fans and fellow authors. Currently working as a private beta, the platform enables everyone to share their work free and keep 100% of donations. Just like the invite-only social network Ello, Crowdshare aims at creating a genuine, community-powered platform to help creatives fulfill their dreams.
3. FileInvite
The idea behind FileInvite is pretty easy: it helps you collect all the information from your clients in a professional manner. This service would be helpful for web designers, photographers, freelancers of any kind, accountants, advertising agencies and more. With FileInvite the information clients share would never get lost. Once somebody sends you any information, you’ll get the notification via email or SMS. The files will be automatically saved on your cloud storage accounts like Dropbox and Google Drive. FileInvite is a perfect place to keep a client’s information.
4. Date Night Cookbook
Date Night Cookbook will be a recipe book for pre-planned dates. It will have differently themed date ideas along with a menu for every occasion. The author of the project is Rebecca Warbis, a student and food photographer from London. She needs money for getting these books published. All the recipes are written and photographed by Rebecca, with a team of 4 graphic designers and an illustrator.
5. Graphis – A Pencil? A Pen? A Stylus? Yes
Graphis is a great writing utensil which could be a pen, a pencil and a stylus depending on your needs. With pen and stylus inserts, and optional color leads, it may be the last writing utensil you ever buy. There will be 5 different materials to choose from such as aluminum, brass, copper, carbon fibre and titanium. Each Graphis will come with the removable pocket clip as shown on the image and a built-in sharpener.
6. Distill
Finally not only stock photos are available for free for commercial use, but high-quality HD videos also. Distill is a curated video resource site which offers 10 new videos for personal and commercial projects every 10 days. The videos are available for download under a Creative Commons Zero license. These videos could come in handy for creatives of any field for their sites and creative projects needing videography.
7. Building one of the world’s largest wet plate cameras
This project is quite popular on Kickstarter. Chris Honeysett is an award winning photographer from San Francisco. He is aiming to create a Mega Mammoth, 22 x 27″ wet plate camera to photograph the American Southwest. It would be one of the largest cameras in the world. This camera would be over 400 times larger than a 35mm film. It will increase image quality, making it bigger and better.
8. Designed You
Designed You gives you a unique opportunity to create an online identity without knowing a single line of code. It offers you the ability to create a site to pool your social media, resume and biography into your own homepage available online. No matter what you’re going to do: to set up your business, look for a job, or just tell the world about yourself. They will take care of your personal brand as their motto is “Build your online brand before someone else does”.
9. Pictora – a Mobile App – Relive Your Memories!
Pictora is a nice mobile app that will help you to collect memories. The application is available for both Apple and Android users. It offers you the ability to create a cool photo book with a cover of your choice. Just choose 40 photos from your phone and upload them to the app. Each photo will be printed on high-quality paper and collated into a beautiful photo book. You can also detach any photo from the album and put it into a photo frame. A Pictora album is a perfect gift for all occasions.
10. Lapdeck: the $10 recyclable laptop desk
Photographers, designers, businessmen and other creatives are forced to spend a lot of time in front of the computer or laptop each day. Lapdeck is a small desk that will help you to work comfortably anywhere you want, even on your favourite sofa. With Lapdeck you can stay productive in bed, on the sofa, or even in a car. It’s lightweight and portable which makes it suitable for travelling. It’s made of recycled materials and is light and strong.
Over to you
Which project from those listed above would you like to support? Is there a project you think we missed in this collection? Share with us in the comments!
