Design is undergoing a revolution. New technologies like 3D printers and accessible software mean anyone can be a designer today. Professionals and enthusiastic amateurs alike are using open design – the creation of products using publicly available blueprints and instructions – to share their work with the world. Consumers are designing cars, restaurants, even prosthetic legs. Open design is changing everything from furniture-making and education to the way designers earn a living. That's why Creative Commons Netherlands, the Premsela Dutch design and fashion institute, and Waag Society have compiled Open design Now, coming out on June 2 from BIS Publishers. The book sheds light on the new movement and makes one thing clear: design cannot remain exclusive.
Open design empowers individuals as "part of a growing possibilitarian movement," giving us "all the instruments to become the one-man factory," Marleen Stikker argues in an introduction to the Open Design Now. Academics such as philosophy professor Jos de Mul, designers like Joris Laarman, and professionals including John Thackara and Bre Pettis look at what's driving open design and where it's going. They examine new business models and issues of copyright, sustainability, education and social critique.
Along with 15 essays by thinkers, designers and businesspeople, the book features case studies showing how projects varying from the RepRap self-replicating 3D-printer to $50 Fab Lab prosthetic legs are changing the world. And the Visual Index uses hundreds of images to illustrate aspects of open design from activism and copyright to co-creation and recycling.
As John Thackara puts it, "Openness is more than a commercial and cultural issue. It's a matter of survival."
Open Design Now is essential reading for designers, businesspeople, decisionmakers, students and anyone concerned with the future of design and society.
