Keep the people
in the picture.

Our values

Make good things.
Stand for good things.

We believe in democracy, equal rights, and dignity for every person. We oppose authoritarianism and the MAGA movement. That doesn’t mean writing off every conservative. Respectful disagreement belongs in a democracy; cruelty and intimidation don’t.

01 / A direct connection

The maker is
the starting point.

Learn who makes something and where they’re based. Visit their existing shop, or find them through a hosted maker page. Makers handle their own availability, payment, and fulfillment.

Applications are reviewed by a person. Makers review their public details before a listing goes live.

02 / Free means free

Good work deserves
a place to be found.

Directory listings, maker-page hosting, AI-assisted web design, and search setup are free. There are no upcharges or in-app purchases for our services. We don’t collect payment details because we have no reason to take payments for them.

Makers set their own product prices. You arrange purchases directly with them.

Free search setup

Help your work
get found.

Clear page titles and descriptions. A sitemap. Help setting up Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. These tools are free, and so is our help.

For pages hosted on Blue Dot Makers, we manage search setup for the shared website. If you have your own website, we can help with your permission and access to the settings it needs. Your website and webmaster accounts stay yours.

Search engines decide what to index and where it appears. We can’t guarantee indexing, rankings, or traffic. No paid SEO package is required.

Choose Maker support on the inquiry form.

Personally run / Best effort

Hosting is
homemade, too.

Dave personally runs this free service on a best-effort basis. We can’t guarantee uptime, uninterrupted availability, or a support response time. Keep your own copies of your content. If your business needs guaranteed availability, you can use another host and keep your free directory listing here.

03 / Real pictures

Show what’s made.
Keep it honest.

If a picture helps sell something, it ought to show what you can actually get. Advertising already gives us plenty of pictures polished beyond recognition. We don’t want to add invented products to that pile.

AI helps us build the website. We don’t use AI-generated images. Product photos come from the makers and show their real work. Until a maker has photos they want to share, we can let the words do the work.

04 / A place to grow

Pennsylvania first.
State by state.

We’re beginning with McLaughlin’s Homemade in Wilmerding, Pennsylvania. As more artists and makers join, the directory can grow into more places without losing the local connection.