Your Idea, in Safe Hands: Why Confidentiality and Trust Come First in Design
Before you share a sketch, a drawing or a single dimension, you deserve to know how it will be looked after. This is how we do it, and why it matters so much to us.
Every project we take on begins the same way: with someone trusting us with something that matters to them.
Sometimes it's a founder with a first product, an idea they've been turning over for months, perhaps years, sketched on whatever was to hand. Sometimes it's an established business with the next generation of a product line, backed by real investment and a team waiting to see it come together. Either way, the moment you show it to us, you're placing your trust in our hands. We've never taken that lightly, and we never will.
Since 2011, our approach has stayed refreshingly simple. Your idea is yours. It stays yours. And we look after it as carefully as we would our own.
Why openness makes better design
The best design work happens when we understand the whole picture: what your product needs to do, who it's for, what has been tried before and what makes it special. The more you feel able to share, the better we can serve you.
But openness only comes naturally when it feels safe. If you're a founder, your idea may well be the most valuable thing you own. You might be preparing a patent, talking to investors, or simply not ready for the world to see it yet. If you're an established business, you're protecting roadmaps, launch dates, supplier relationships and the advantage of being first to market. We understand both, and we treat both with the same care.
How we look after your ideas
Trust is built on what people do rather than what they say, so here's what actually happens when you come to us.
The agreement comes first. Before you send a single drawing, image or file, we'll put a Mutual Confidentiality Agreement (NDA) in place. Just tick the box on our contact form and we'll send it within 48 hours. It's mutual for a reason: we believe trust should run both ways.
Your project stays with your team. Only the small team working on your project ever sees it. Your files are never passed on or reused for anyone else.
Suppliers see only what they need. If your project moves into prototyping or manufacture, we only share what a supplier genuinely needs to do their part, and only once you're happy for us to do so.
Your work is yours to show. We'll only feature a project with your agreement, and only once patents and launch are safely in place. Some of the work we're proudest of has never appeared on our website at all, and that's exactly how it should be.
What we create is yours. Once a project is paid for, the intellectual property in the design passes to you. We're simply glad to have helped bring it to life.
A confidentiality agreement, in plain English
We think you should understand anything you sign, so here's ours without the legal language. It's a written promise that we'll both keep each other's information private and use it only for the project we're working on together. It covers your ideas, drawings, files and commercial details, from our very first conversation.
It also does something quieter, but just as important: it lets you relax. With it in place, you can tell us everything that matters, and that's when the real work begins.
If you're protecting an invention, it's well worth speaking to a patent attorney too. We produce patent-standard drawings to EPO and USPTO conventions, so we can support that side of things as well.
Trust that grows over years
Perhaps the truest measure of how we handle confidential work is how long our clients choose to stay. Several have worked with us for more than a decade, trusting us with one product after another. Those relationships mean more to us than any single project.
We're grateful for the kind words clients have shared about us on Google:
“We've worked with David Wood and Make 3D Limited for around fourteen years and have always been very happy with their services… we would thoroughly recommend them to other companies.” Nicholas Maynard
“Always a pleasure to work with David Wood. A true professional and honourable businessman.” David Myers
Discretion, honesty and respect aren't policies we adopted to win work. They're simply how we've always done business, and how we always will.
Let's talk, whenever you're ready
If you have an idea you'd like to explore, we'd love to hear about it. Tell us as much or as little as you're comfortable with through our contact form, and tick the confidentiality box if you'd like the agreement in place before sharing any files. From there, we'll arrange a relaxed discovery call to talk through what you're hoping to achieve, with no obligation at all.
Your idea deserves a design partner who will develop it with care and keep it in confidence. That's the promise we've kept for every client, and it's the one we'll keep for you.
MAKE puts a mutual confidentiality agreement in place before you share any drawings, images or files.
Get in touch to discuss your project.