This is the exact type of case I always look for, too. I love the Spigen ToughArmor for my phones due to that. I can set my current phone face down and not worry about it due to the raised edge around the screen.
To be honest, I am not surprised that Purism will not likely take time to develop a case (they have enough to do), and I doubt there will be any case manufacturers that design a case specific to the Gen 1 Librem 5.
However!
As suggested by @maxzor in a previous post, I plan on designing a case for our beloved 5 as soon as Purism finalizes the case dimensions and port/button/switch placements. For myself, I plan on doing a design that is a combination of an inner TPU flexible shell (with a slight lip overlapping the top of the phone) perhaps combined with an outer hard shell, likely done in PLA. I will be more than happy to take suggestions during the design phase, and of course it goes without saying that any design will be distributed under a fair attribution CC license. 
For those without a printer, the design will still be useful as you can simply get the case printed through a company such as shapeways.com. In fact, if there is enough interest, I could always set up an account with them once the design is complete and tested so you could simply purchase it directly without having to upload the file etc. (and maybe I would even make a few dollars off the design!)
No doubt we are many months away from having enough case details to start design, but rest assured there will be a Librem 5 case!
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i don’t think this will be too much time eating (even dollars eating) if they have a printer i think the cost should be around 1$ to make it, you can buy these silicon cover for 3$ usually and they make money selling it at 3$
i don’t like the idea to spendo 10-20-30$ to buy the cover and the shipping cost just for a cover, the phone is expensive but i pay for freedom and to endorse a company who care about it, but i do not have money to waste for covers, i’m ok if they are gonna sell it for less than 5$ because is just +5$ and it ship with the phone so no other costs, if they really can’t do it for free considering the phone price
@roguenorm
It’s been some time now, do you think you made any headway with your case design and shapeway suggestions?
Hey,
No designs yet, as I’m still waiting to get final dimensions of the hardware before I commit some time to designing a case. Rest assured I still plan to make something and am still pondering designs that are functional but still easily printable. I will certainly start sharing designs with the community once I start and hopefully together we can crowd source a cool design that people will be happy with.
@roguenorm, @Seven, I kind of jumped the gun and started on a cover using approximate measurements from the images on the website. I’m using OpenSCAD, so it will be relatively easy to fix the dimensions when we have them. Once I’ve got the script cleaned up a little more, I’ll put it on Github, and we could start refining/branching designs, etc.
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That’s awesome and a great idea! That will speed up design immensely, since it looks like a great base.
And nice curves! (I don’t say that to just anyone ) Are you using a Hull or a Minkowski approach for your rounded corners?
Also, if you are on Matrix, you should mention it in the in the #Librem-5-Case-Creating-Community:matrix.org room.
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Thanks to L5 depth I still think that all it is needed for sufficient protection is to have integrated D3O® material for impact absorption within TPU shell for impact protection and grip … thinking back cover here is obsolete and purposely to be avoided.
Similarly, GARMIN offers Silicone Cases (without back cover) for Edge® Explore and Edge® 1030 in black, white, yellow, green, blue and red. Yes, please help if You can, even though as my playground (choice of material and design) looks different it still might be the proper choice of manufacturer or broader interest.
And, for example, if we talk about 3D Printing with Silicones, ACEO Open Print Lab (in Burghausen, DEU and Ann Abor, Michigan, USA) provide their service only to B2B customers and this means that I as individual cannot buy there even if I have design template (or two).
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The script makes liberal use of the “hull” function – although I generally get what “minkowski” does, I find “hull” more intuitive and flexible, if not more efficient in terms of code length.
I’m not on Matrix, but will look that up.
Script coming soon!
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Regarding a cover/case it would be cool to have two slits in the back if the back ever gets added back to run an armband through to use for running, working out, etc.
I’ve got the script up on Github
https://github.com/ericspivey/Librem-5-cover
I hope it’s fairly self explanitory, but please let me know if anyone needs explanation of any of the user-set parameters. I’ve grouped all of the settable parameters at the top of the script. When we have the final phone dimensions with the locations of the controls, we should just be able to plug them in.
Anyone unfamiliar with OpenSCAD that is interested can download it from http://www.openscad.org/
I may start a new thread to broaden the exposure.
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@snarfel, my cover is not backless. Although with an aluminum cover you don’t really need a back, I prefer to have something to protect the aluminum cover from scratches/dents, even if it increases the overall thickness. It should therefore be fairly straightforward to add two slits to the back of this design. Maybe start a new branch from my github main branch? Let me know if you need help.
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@Quarnero, although my current design has a back, it should be fairly straightforward to remove the back using my OpenSCAD script on Github. If you’re interested, why don’t you start a new branch there? Let me know if you need help.
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@ecs, sure I am looking forward to dive into it soon … tomorrow is a new day thanks to you (and your work). First step is already done: # apt install openscad … that’s it for now, great!
I added some back slits on a branch script
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Hello ecs, I’m on FreeBSD and right now installing the port OpenSCAD in it to run your script through. What kind of material would be appropriate for printing the cover later? Thanks for your idea and work. Looking forward to get my L5 soon.
Ultimately, I think TPU (thermoplastic urethane) or some other TPE would be best for the final product. That being said, an initial run in any material would be useful at this point, just to test the print-ability of the design. One thing in particular I’m curious about is if 1 mm thickness is sufficient, or if 1.5 or 2 would be better. Let me know how it turns out, or if you run into any problems!
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I do not own any 3D-printer, but we have copy shops in Munich for this. They charge 10 Euro per printing hour. What do you think, how long your design as STL file will take for printing?
The only printing I have done is on consumer-grade printers with PLA, and I currently don’t have “hobbiest” access to one. I would conservatively estimate that it could be done in 2-3 hours? Anyone else have a guess, or can run it through some software to check? They might tell you if you send the file to the copy shop.
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Stuff like this is never 3D printed.
This would be very expensive, but most of all you’re significantly limited in choice of material and quality.
3D printing silicone is very hard, the few printers that can do it are very expensive and barely available.
I find it highly unlikely to get a adequate quality silicone cover via 3D printing.
To do it right would be to have a specialized company produce it, via a molding process.
For that you’d just have to provide them with the specification and they will produce a mold (which is the expensive part) once, and can do several thousand hulls using that mold.
For a one-off, this would cost a lot of money, but if there would be an order of maybe 1000 pieces, the cost would go down to under 20 dollars per cover.
Also, ordering more would be cheaply possible.
If Purism doesn’t plan to do it, I think the most realistic way of producing covers would be to do another crowd funding, for example on Crowdsupply, and contract a company to do it.
For example: https://www.rpmrubberparts.com/custom-parts
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