grass-roots industrial design

09/03/2004 04:03:00 PM
These days, one of the only way consumers can own, wear or use something that's truly unique is to make it themselves. While the DIY (Do It Yourself) trend is not new in categories like apparel, PCs and cars, other categories that feel immune may not be for long. Sure, the argument goes, a consumer can put stickers on their cell phone or redo the look of their MP3 player, but can they really make their own cell phone or their own telephone without starting with a mass produced branded product as a baseboard?

Today, rapid prototyping technology, that is 3-D printers that can instantly crank out a physical copy of anything you can design on a computer, are available only to elite design firms at high costs. But those costs are getting lower at the same time as 'original design manufacturing companies' overseas are becoming experts at cranking out consumer electronics goods by the specs given by brands like Virgin or Sony.

Brands know that the powerful consumer need for unique, inimitable products just isn't being satisfied by brands' attempted band-aids: 'limited editions' and mass-customizable options. What will happen when a hobbyist can create a design for an MP3 player on his mac, send it to an offshore service that will take that personal design and crank out 10 copies at a reasonable price? The bar for consumers to create their own brands and products will get lower and lower and new local brand entrants will proliferate across categories.
Article entitled, 'How industrial design became a weekend hobby'
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