Funny how things fall into your lap: A few days ago, I posted an article on the potential impacts of 3D printing on manufacturing, consumer behaviors and education. I suggested that cheap at-home 3D printing will require designers to consider a range of factors that are often ignored today, ex. limitations of 3D printers and materials used, consumers’ ability to put things together from small printed parts, etc., and that if we want to be prepared for this type of design-based economy, we have to start educating for it now. I just came across some things that demonstrate exactly the point I wanted to make. Nokia recently made available 3D models of cases for their Lumia phones so that people with access to 3D printers can print them themselves. However, it seems that what they released are simply the designs intended to be used in industrial injection molding manufacturing processes. They didn’t redesign the model to take into account the capabilities and limitations of currently available 3D printers. Injection molding uses materials and processes that produce a more durable product than 3D printers are capable of. The result is that the printed cases are too thin in places and crack very easily.
QED.
Nokia is listening to their users, though, and they’re still way ahead of the game here. Although, with a little bit of foresight, they should have realized that designing for industrial manufacturing processes is not the same as designing for 3D printers before they released the models (caveat: who knows – maybe they did what they did intentionally so they could learn to do it right). Nokia’s users, however, have definitely been quick to figure this out and immediately set out to improvise and improve on the models released by Nokia. But, the key here is that Nokia released their models free of charge and under Creative Commons licenses. What will happen when companies inevitably want to sell their designed models as their primary goods and protect their intellectual property? Not thinking through the design process could prove devastating in such a situation.
