Word to Ponoko May 30
For those of you unfamiliar with WGSN, Worth Global Style Network is the “leading global service providing online research, trend analysis and news to the fashion, design and style industries.”
Basically any large corporation at all concerned with style, trend, product or design subscribes to this behemoth of a trend source. And this morning, Ponoko got a little mention from the Think Tank team. For those of you without the $25k per year access, here’s the article via WGSN.
WGSN identifies a growing DIY approach to design and technology, from lo-fi, home-grown technology and design for community benefit, to personalising anonymous product and anti-corporate open-sourcing.
WGSN has been tracking a shift in the boundaries between consumer and creator for some time - whether it be consumer-generated content on the internet or the shunning of specialist skills and tools needed to create.
The focus for creation and consumerism is heading more and more towards an ‘integrated’ experience. Consumers will expect to make, create or be involved in the development of products, and will bypass - even ‘hack’ - traditional methods.
Maker culture
The digital world has a lot to answer for when it comes to DIY-ism, spawning a culture of people who can claim, “I make” rather than “I buy”.
Silicon valley entrepreneur Andrew Keen’s book, The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing our Culture bemoans the user-generated nature of Web 2.0. Yet there is a new creativity developing that is moving beyond design dilettantism.
The Etsy crafts portal is one particular site that illustrates the trends for make-it-yourself and sell-it-yourself enterprise.
With its “Build, Craft, Hack, Play, Make” tagline, US-based Make magazine and its sister Maker Faire epitomise the trend.
Unashamedly geeky, it celebrates a “growing community of resourceful people who undertake amazing projects in their backyards, basements and garages”, and it informs readers how to relate to technology on their own time.
Swedish design group Front’s Sketch Furniture concept also shows how technology can enable easy, instant design.
Pen strokes made in the air are recorded with Motion Capture and become 3D digital files; these are then materialised through Rapid Prototyping into real pieces of furniture. Watch the video here.
Other design innovations include Fab Labs, an MIT project offering facilities such as a laser-cutter and 3D printer to creators, while Ponoko offers users the chance to upload a 3D design and make use of professional tools to manufacture - and then sell it.
Meanwhile, design comes to your doorstep with the imminent launch of the Desktop Factory, a 3D printer that builds objects through layers of plastic.
Homemade technology, often trivial (see the internet-enabled coffee maker), is nevertheless throwing off its chemistry set image.
Tom Igoe’s book, Making Things Talk: Practical Methods for Connecting Physical Objects, relishes in connecting home-based devices to create a tech-geek’s ultimate domestic environment.
Everyday genius
The DIY trend has also spawned everyday scientists - proof that anyone can be a maker.
These everyday geniuses cobble together simple but effective machines and objects using the lumpen cast-offs of hi-tech Western products, such as Chinese farmer Mr Woo, who taught himself to build robots from junk.
The maker sphere was recently abuzz with news about a young man from Malawi who built a wind generator for his family’s home using instructions from a primary school textbook.
William Kamkwamba has even documented its construction in a blog.
A Nigerian college student also was recently reported to have crafted a helicopter from a Toyota and parts from a crashed Boeing 747, complete with push-button ignition and ground-vision camera.
This celebration of common sense design for social benefit is summed up by Yves Béhar’s design for the One Laptop Per Child scheme, which has just won the Brit Insurance Design Award for 2008 at London’s Design Museum.
Anti-corporate
There’s more than a hint of a corporate backlash in DIY culture. The internet is full of images of the inner workings of consumer products - or ‘teardowns’ - such as the naked mechanics under the shiny skin of an iMac.
George Holz, the 17-year-old teenager who became the first person to hack the much-hyped iPhone received international media attention - and a not so firm slap on the wrists; he traded in the hacked iPhone for a new car.
Speaking of the iPhone, we like the array of imitations on offer, such as the clay iPhone and even wooden iPhone cases (as seen at miniot.com), all of which are an attempt (consciously and unconsciously) to negate or individualise the iconic image of this mass consumer product.
There’s a tongue-in-cheek irony to this hack culture, whether its Republicraft’s Department of Homeland Security Blanket or the H3 toy hacking workshop.
Open-source
Open-source culture is moving into the mainstream and bringing with it an egalitarian mindset.
In a wiki culture, collaboration is key. Ubuntu, a community-developed, free Linux-based software, is now available on new Dell PCs and offers all the applications needed on a standard computer.
Open-source sewing is the latest online project for pattern-maker Burda, while Styleshake is a new site offering collaborative fashion and facilities that enable users to create their own clothes.
Threadbanger offers video content informing makers how to create their own fashion and even their own art collections. The recently launched MyDeco.com site meanwhile enables consumers to become their own interior designers, offering an easy-to-use 3D design facility.
As you may or may not know, Liverpool is 
