Ponoko in the NYTLoc­al start-up and Friends-of-Wel­ling­tonista Ponoko (among oth­er con­nec­tions to us they’re also part-spon­sor of our awards this year) have their pic­ture at the top of an inter­est­ing art­icle in the tech sec­tion of today’s New York Times. The art­icle talks about the rise of inter­net-aided design and mak­ing and describes Ponoko thus:

Ponoko, a com­pany based in New Zea­l­and, allows cus­tom­ers to upload designs for flat shapes that can then be snapped togeth­er like Ikea fur­niture. Mak­ing a pro­to­type can be as simple as cut­ting shapes out of card­board. Users then cre­ate a digit­al ver­sion and send it to Ponoko, which cuts the pat­tern out in met­al or wood with a laser.

There’s a fair head of glob­al buzz build­ing up around Ponoko, whose poten­tial extends far bey­ond the Times’ fairly neut­ral descrip­tion of what can be achieved with them today.

And as for us: well, we were very excited to note what looks like a pro­to­type of the highly sought after 2nd Annu­al Wel­ling­tonista Award trophy vis­ible on the table between Dave and Derek. So maybe this means we’ve made the Times as well?