Hey, all! Spoiler alert: nothing bad, but there are some things I want to talk about.

My work has started doing layoffs, and as is tradition with layoffs, everyone's on edge about what happens next. Like others, I'm trying to look forward at the future, and I think that there's a really great opportunity to spend a little time really focusing on the community... but I need your help.

I've printed (or have in the queue to print) a swatch of every filament I've gotten my hands on... minus the first four I used. In 2016, I started this collection because I wanted an archive for myself, but it has grown into so much more. Receiving a surprisingly steady 400ish visitors a day, the library is a core piece of infrastructure for lots of people's printing journeys. While it's very functional, there are a lot of things that I'd like to improve on and a lot of features I'd like to bring to you!

That's why I'm making this post. Over the last eight years, we've grown this library to the single largest collection and archive of filament anywhere. We want to continue growing it and continue bringing you this resource that I've poured so much of myself into, and I'd like to do it full-time. Since launching the site in 2019, we've worked on it over nights and weekends, putting thousands of hours into printing, cataloging, designing, and writing to make it the best that it could be, and now we have an opportunity to make it even better.

If my site is an important resource to you on your printing journey, please consider becoming a recurring supporter of the site on Ko-fi or Patreon — every little bit helps me support the entire 3D printing community with colors and historical data that simply don't exist anywhere else.

As part of these changes, I'll also be rolling out a sponsorship contract program for companies who want to partner officially. There will also be changes coming to API access over the coming months, but don't worry — there will still be free access for personal projects!

We want to bring you the best version of the library that we can, and in order to do that, we kind of have to make sure we can eat first. If you have any questions about this announcement, our coming plans, or anything else, feel free to reply here, ping me on social media, or send me an email at joe@filamentcolors.xyz.

Thanks for reading!