Chirply: Crowdsourced design for stationery you can buy

We’re pretty big design geeks around here at TNW. Heck, we even have a full channel dedicated to design and development. So when we see interesting ways to design great products, it really tickles our fancy. Chirply is a site that does just that, and also caters to the true writing geek in us.

Chirply takes crowdsourced design, and then creates stationery products (like wrapping paper, cards and more) from it that you can buy for yourself or others. In fact, one of Chirply’s own site designers submitted his own work. It got some great votes and then that designer was contracted by an apparel company for their clothes.

Now here’s the catch — good design isn’t cheap. Each card will cost $4 (or any 10 for $25), but shipping is at least included. There’s a good reason for the cost, beyond the design: Every card is 100% post-consumer recycled.

The Chirply team is taking the site live today, after a private soft launch a few weeks ago. Typically speaking, a Chirply user will vote on 30 different designs, and so far over 100 have been submitted. For the retail launch, 12 have been chosen and many more will come as the site takes off.

Want the inside scoop on Chirply? the site has a great blog where they talk design and do interviews with some ace designers.

Of course, if you’re really into what Chirply is doing, you can even apply to work with them. Chirply is looking for a software engineer, and the Jobs Site will let you know of anything else that’s coming up.

So there you have it. Great designs, voted on by the users, turned into products that you’ll actually use. Chirply hits upon some major hot buttons for us here at TNW and we think it will for you, as well.

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