This month Boxx Technologies, a technology partner with Luxion, published a case study that took a look into the life of Bill Gould (aka Speedster on the KeyShot forum), a Boxx and KeyShot user who has seen the tooling, modeling and design industry change from hands-on model-making and drafting boards to 3d models and visuals created digitally. It’s an aspect of his life that challenged him and changed his business, with phenomenal outcomes and an inspiring story everyone in design and manufacturing should read.
KeyShot is Key
When it comes to rendering, Bill is a fierce advocate of KeyShot, a leading, professional rendering program from Luxion. An early adopter, Bill has relied on the application since 2008 as the best way to present designs to his clients. It began as a value added feature—something Bill could offer that other designers did not. However, it has now become more of an industry standard, and in terms of Bill’s business model, KeyShot makes up 30-35 percent of his business. “Everything is so visual now,” he explains. “Most people don’t understand blueprints and really don’t understand models unless they actually have one.”
It’s important to show your design visually, but expectations are high. In fact, I tell my clients to be careful when they choose to actually present a design to upper management. Typically, those people are not engineers and if you show prematurely, the boss can get the design locked in his mind which can then cause problems down the line when you actually present a very different looking final product. He may say ‘Hey, this isn’t what you showed me. Why did you spend all that money redoing it?”
For Bill, KeyShot has become a genuine profit center. He now also offers rendering for ad agencies and other companies as his KeyShot renders are usually better than what they can achieve with actual photography. In addition, he provides fine art printing, sells blueprints to modelers, and is a high-ranking Diamond Level artist on TurboSquid. “All of this is accomplished with the same technology and investment,” Bill says, “but instead of vertical marketing, it’s horizontal.”
Definitely, take the time to read the rest of the story. It’s inspiring and a pleasure to know Bill a little bit better through it. Here are just a few shots he has shared through the forums. To find out more about his business, visit his website at gouldstudios.com.
