What makes a good fire pit design?

Updated 29th Sep, 2021

We get a lot of enquiries here at MAX Custom Fire Pits from customers wanting to know if we can cut their fire pit design idea into one of our products.

Usually, our answer is a resounding YES!, however, it’s important to know a few facts about what makes a great firepit design, and what produces the best results when you get your pit back and start using it.

I’ve put together a quick list of things to think about when designing your new custom fire pit.

And, when you are ready to order your very own, we’ve now introduced Afterpay as a convenient payment option that lets you spread out the cost over 4 simple payments,

Bigger, bolder firepit designs work best.

The laser cutting machine that we have is the best in the business, but even one so powerful and accurate has some limitations. Remember, we are talking about 4mm raw steel, so we need to work with the material to get the best results.

Designs with intricate detail are absolutely possible, and you can see from the image below, it’s capable of some incredibly detailed work. But what we have seen over the many years of creating and testing our own designs is that the more simple and bolder the design is, the better the end result, especially when you have a roaring fire inside!

Thankfully, a lot of the popular designs, such as the sports logo fire pit logos are engineered to be simple and memorable already, and always turn out looking great. Personalised designs also work great because they can also be meaningful to a person who you are buying for. Our range of fishing fire pits, for example makes an excellent gift for your fishing mad friends or family members.

All floating elements need to be ‘tagged’

Working with 4mm raw steel has its challenges. It’s heavy and brutally tough to cut. One other consideration is that due to the nature of the way we produce our fire puts, we are removing steel from the design to leave a “reverse” cutout in the steel. This means that when you have elements such as the middle section of the letter “O” for example, we need to find a way to keep that in place, otherwise it will simply fall out!

To do this, we use a system called ‘tagging’ to keep the floating bits of steel that are crucial to the design in place. We use small 3mm ‘tags’ of steel to keep everything rock solid. Take a look at the image below for an example of how it works.

Consider your design as a silhouette first.

Remember, when you’ve got your fire pit back and start using it in your backyard or out camping with family and friends, the way you will see your design is being backlit by the fire you have inside. 

It helps to imagine your new fire pit design as a silhouette. Imagine the design being cut out of a piece of paper and then holding it up to a light. 

Is the design easy to see?
Is the design instantly recognisable?



If you follow these simple guidelines, we are confident you will end up with an outdoor fire pit that you and your family will love. Keep it simple, keep it bold and you will get the most out of your design.