Abstract
Today a range of increasingly mainstream Digital Fabrication tools help designers not only in prototyping, but also in the production of final parts for consumer products. These hardware tools, while still have significant limitations, they already offer new levels of morphological freedom and logistical flexibility, which allows the efficient production of personalisable products – supposing advanced software tools of Parametric Design. However, since DF, PD and personalisation are still marginal, one may suspect that the Design profession has a shortage of adequate capabilities. Therefore, this contribution proposes a conceptual tool focused on valorising the previous hardware and software tools to achieve meaningfully personalisable products. The proposed canvas tool is structured specifically to facilitate opportunity identification and conceptual design, based on a set of key advantages (variabilities) derived from numerous case studies of existing personalisable products realised with DF. The new approach and tool have been experimented with a class of product design students, but it also aims to facilitate product development at enterprises, coherently with the emerging Industry 4.0 paradigm.
Keywords
canvas; opportunity identification; concept design; personalisation
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2018.678
Citation
Malakuczi, V., Di Lucchio, L., Coppola, A., and Alamo Avila, A. (2018) Post-Series Design: a tool for catalysing the diffusion of personalisable design, in Storni, C., Leahy, K., McMahon, M., Lloyd, P. and Bohemia, E. (eds.), Design as a catalyst for change - DRS International Conference 2018, 25-28 June, Limerick, Ireland. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2018.678
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Post-Series Design: a tool for catalysing the diffusion of personalisable design
Today a range of increasingly mainstream Digital Fabrication tools help designers not only in prototyping, but also in the production of final parts for consumer products. These hardware tools, while still have significant limitations, they already offer new levels of morphological freedom and logistical flexibility, which allows the efficient production of personalisable products – supposing advanced software tools of Parametric Design. However, since DF, PD and personalisation are still marginal, one may suspect that the Design profession has a shortage of adequate capabilities. Therefore, this contribution proposes a conceptual tool focused on valorising the previous hardware and software tools to achieve meaningfully personalisable products. The proposed canvas tool is structured specifically to facilitate opportunity identification and conceptual design, based on a set of key advantages (variabilities) derived from numerous case studies of existing personalisable products realised with DF. The new approach and tool have been experimented with a class of product design students, but it also aims to facilitate product development at enterprises, coherently with the emerging Industry 4.0 paradigm.