Open Design

Open design is a movement whereby designs and blueprints for products and components are available to everyone for free. This gives other designers the opportunity to improve and adapt these designs and pass these on to others to be improved further. Whilst this is seen as a modern phenomenon, it was arguably an idea first pioneered by Enzo Mari when he released his 1974 book, Autoprogettazione. The book contained blueprints and instructions for building items of furniture. These designs were intended to be easy to make using inexpensive materials and simple manufacturing methods such as a hammer and nail. This made the designs easily accesible.

Today, the advances in computer technology and the advent of the internet has propelled the movement to new heights. CAD files can now be exchanged online and commercially available 3D printers and laser cutters mean that almost any shape can be created on the spot in a relatively short amount of time.

It is undoubtedly a very exciting time to be a designer. The open source movement is making design more and more accessible with the potential to completely change the way products are produced and perceived.

However, I think that the movement does bring some dangers. Most of these centre around the fact that anyone can contribute towards a design. Having too many people working on a single project can result in a design that is unfocused and inefficient. Everyone has a slightly different idea of what the ideal design is and this can dilute the end product. It has some elements of too many cooks spoil the broth about it.

The nature of open design means that there is no vetting process on the quality of the design uploaded. There is also no obligation to conform to the safety standards of products produced through traditional means. Another issue is the ongoing controversy over intellectual property that refuses to go away.

Overall though, I think that open design should be embraced. It seems likely that it will change the face of design and manufacturing over the coming decades and in these situations it doesn't pay to be a Luddite.

Magnitudes

Ben Craven gave a talk on the use of basic maths and physics to quickly work out if an idea is feasible or not.

Often, designers and engineers launch into the design process without having any evidence that their concept will actually work. If they are unlucky, they might spend months working on a concept only to discover that their idea is fundamentally flawed when it comes to the testing phase.

This could have been thought through better

With a bit of common sense and a basic understanding of physics, such disasters can be avoided! By knowing a few simple equations such as Work = Force x Distance and by using educated guesses for the values, a realistic estimate can be obtained. Whilst this may not give you a totally accurate value, it can at least provides an order of magnitude.

This can tell you one of three things: It can completely rule out an idea, it can prove it beyond any doubt or it can keep it within the realms of possibility. It's true that certain things can only be determined through practical experimentation but in most cases, a few quick calculations can remove a lot of uncertainty.

In the talk, we were given a few example problems to apply this theory to. It was amazing that even by using figures that were just educated guesses, we could get very close to the correct answer. Also, the result could be drastically different from what you might expect. One such example was that if you took the entire human race and piled it up into a cone with sides sloped at 45 degrees, it would be just 1000m tall. For reference, that's smaller than Ben Nevis which stands at 1344m. Perhaps what was even more surprising was that the energy density of this cone would be higher than that of the sun!

I think it is often easy to be intimidated by the idea of using maths to solve problems. Many of us seem to have it hard-wired into our brain that even with simple calculations, maths is really difficult and should only be attempted by leading experts. In his demonstration, Ben Craven demonstrated that this is not the case.

The Aesthetics of Technology

It is a common misconception that the job of a designer is solely to style a product in a way that is aesthetically pleasing. In reality, the work of a designer is far more expansive and varied covering all aspects of the product's function, manufacture and user interaction.

That being said, aesthetics is the aspect of design that people usually relate to the most. It can be the difference between someone picking one product up off the shelf over another and even paying more for it despite the function of the two products being identical.

To stay relevant to current tastes, product aesthetics change with the times to reflect fashion trends and advances in technology. To demonstrate this, we'll briefly be looking at some examples of how the radio has evolved over the course of the 20th century.

This is a depiction of a 1920s family listening to a radio. The picture alone shows that the radio had a very different role in family life to the role it occupies today. The family would gather around it and listen together much like a modern family might watch TV. The other striking aspect is the size of it. You might think that this is due to the size of the technology inside but this isn't the case. There were many smaller radios available at the time.

The size of the wireless cabinet reflects the radio's role as a status symbol. In many ways, the wireless was the centre of a home. If you had a large, grand, ornate wireless, you were clearly someone important. The styling of the cabinet shows how at this time, a radio was considered more of a furniture item than an individual product.

The Tesla Talisman was actually designed in the late 1930s but not released until the 1950s

The world was not ready!

Fast forward to the 1950s and the radio has changed a lot. It is much smaller, the casing material has gone from hardwood to Bakelite and it now has radical streamlined styling. With the television now the centre of the family home, the radio has found a new role as a personal media device. Now everyone can have their own radio and listen to the stations that they choose.

The streamlined styling is a reflection of the advances in aerospace and automotive technology at the time. By making reference to these cutting edge advancements in transport, the user associates the radio with being the height of modernity.

It's worth noting that this is just one example. Trying to sum up the aesthetics of a 1950s radio is almost impossible due to the huge range of styles, colours and shapes available at the time. This in many ways reflects how the radio had become a personal item with manufacturers now catering to every taste.

This is an example of a modern analogue radio. Again, advances in electronics have seen the product become smaller. Perhaps more significantly, improved battery technology has also seen it become portable. The styling of the product is fairly bland and unremarkable in complete contrast to the enormous ornate cabinet of the 1920s. Perhaps this shows how over the last century, the radio has gone from being a status symbol to an everyday item.

In the digital radio sector however, something slightly odd has happened. Many manufacturers are offering modern radios with retro 1950s style casings. Perhaps the more vibrant, colourful aesthetic makes the product feel more special as it did half a century ago.

2001: A Space Odyssey

Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey is one of the most influential films ever made. It set the blueprint for hundreds of sci-fi films with its stunning visuals, unbelievable practical special effects, its eerie soundtrack and high reaching ideas.

Discovery One, the setting for the middle act of the film

From a design perspective it is also a highly significant film. The film's setting in the weightless vacuum of space presents a series of challenges. In many sci-fi films, this would have been brushed under the carpet by having unexplained gravity generators aboard the ship. In 2001 however, there are no such cop-outs. Every set that represents an interior of a space craft has been fully designed around a zero gravity environment. This ranges from enormous centrifuges simulating gravity to Velcro carpets and shoes keeping flight attendants stuck to the floor.

The living quarters of Discovery One

The level of attention to detail is incredible. The little things are perhaps the most impressive such as an in-flight tray of space food being served and a pen floating out of a man's pocket as he sleeps. It all makes the world the film is set in feel much more complete and believable.

It's sometimes easy to forget that much of the technology featured in the film was decades away from being a reality. Video conferencing features heavily in the film but the process has been thought out so well that it rarely stands out as jarring or inaccurate. It's also easy to forget that this was a film made before the Moon Landings as the scenes set on the moon so greatly resemble footage from the real events.

The airlock

What is perhaps most significant is the style of the film. The stark white interiors of the various space vessels have been imitated in countless space based films. The aesthetic style has found its way into many consumer products as well.

The BAC Mono surely owes many of its styling cues to 2001

Overall, 2001: A Space Odyssey is enjoyable not only as a study in theoretical design but as one of the most significant pieces of cinema ever filmed. I would highly recommend watching it.

Joseph Cesare Colombo

Joe Colombo, pictured as always with his pipe

Joe Colombo was born in 1930 and died in 1971. He lived just 41 years but in that time he became a hugely influential and well known designer. Colombo was clearly a very colourful figure studying painting and sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Milan before studying architecture at University.

It was by inheriting the family business that Colombo was able to apply his creativity to design. His father's factory manufactured electrical conductors. This allowed Colombo to experiment with the latest manufacturing techniques and materials.

Colombo believed that everyday problems could be solved with the use of modern materials, namely plastics. He believed that good industrial design should be available to the masses and not just the preserve of the very wealthy.

This is perhaps Colombo's most famous creation, the tube chair. Although it his not his only piece of modular furniture, in my view it is his most successful. I think it's an incredibly clever and stylistic piece of design. It allows the user to construct a chair using four modular components. The innovative connectors allow the product to be infinitely customisable with a huge array of shapes possible. When not in use, the tubes can be stored neatly inside each other like Russian dolls. It is a truly unique and elegant piece of design.

The smoke glass is a product that allows a user to hold a glass using just their thumb so that they can smoke with the same hand. This is obviously a design which is very much of its time but nonetheless, I like it for its eccentricity. It does solve a problem if a very minor one.

The 4801 is one of Colombo's many designs for contemporary Italian furniture manufacturers, Kartell. Designed in 1965, the chair remains in production to this day and still looks incredibly striking and modern. Colombo had originally envisioned the 4801 as a plastic product but the 1965 technology was simply not sufficient and so it was manufactured from wood. As of 2012 however, technology has finally caught up and a 4801 can now be bought in glossy PMMA.

Unfortunately, Colombo's ideals of his designs being available to the masses have not been realised. Below is a link to a page on the website of Wright's auction house documenting the sale of some of Colombo's furniture pieces. It shows that an example of the tube chair was sold at $12 650 with other items fetching similarly high sale prices.

http://www.wright20.com/search/COLOMBO 

Surely the idea of the tube chair being an exclusive, high priced item negates the whole point of it being modular and adaptable. It isn't designed to be a showpiece in someone's luxury apartment, it's designed as a practical solution to shortage of space and a changing living environment. I can't help but feel that Colombo's products have been taken hostage by elitist design snobs.

Despite its modern day price tag, I do like Joe Colombo's work. It doesn't always solve a big problem or solve the problem well but it is always quirky and interesting.