An Industrial Designer’s Perspective on Future Makers

Abstract

We present visions of products and roles of designers in the society of future making from industrial designers’ perspectives. Our visions are based on the analogy that product ecology will be like local farming for food consumption, where people purchase seeds of goods and grow them as they consume. We illustrate two cases in which users take a leading role in personalizing a product to their needs. The first case, Light-morph- Light, is a product that adapts to the usage environment in a loosely controlled fashion, whereas the second case, Shader Printer, provides precise control over the outcome. We discuss some issues and future roles of expert designers that may be caused by the change in the period of democratized fabrication.