Design : Now open

Open source is an approach to design which allows anyone and everyone to contribute to the design process. Whether it be hardware or software or anything inbetween the designs are released for the world to edit, comment on and utalise. It’s a non profit help-each-other-out community feel idea from the design world and can be interpreted in many ways. It has no one definition but a whole ecosystem of definitions But does it work?

You’d think this was a new concept but it’s been around for a while now. Enzo Mari was a designer in the 70s and made a range of open source furniture that the common man could understand. It has often been said that he was the first pioneer of open design. His believed that ‘if people are encouraged to build a table with their own hands they will better understand the thinking within it.’ This theory clearly makes sense- he wanted to educate people on design and successfully did so.

How open is open source design? There are different ways to interpret open source design and I don’t know that much about the topic but I believe for a design to be truly ‘open’ it must be made by tools and materials that are accessible to most and done in a way that is easily understandable and in which people can contribute to the upmost degree. Obviously not everyone would agree with that and different projects and designers demonstrate different degrees of 'open-ness'.

More successful and well known examples of open source are ‘aurdino’ a brand of comerically successful microcontroller boards. It’s a project to get people involved in electronics who aren’t necessarily experts in the field. Its an open hardware project that involves everyone in expanding their business by programming new software and educating people on electronics. This demonstrates a problem as despite the popularity of the brand, the more successful it gets in terms of uptake, the less open source it can be as it becomes harder to take the design in new directions.

The fiat mio project is a more poor example of open source

 

fiat used this project more as a publicity stunt than anything and the level of openness was in fact quite closed. The design input from the public was questionable and it certainly was not made using a technology that was accessible to everyone.

Local motors demonstrated a similar but more successful project

it was done by community vote and you could pay to go and make the vehicle yourself. It was , however, still tied to a production method that was inaccessible but the process was much more accessible than fiats attempt.

Open source has many benefits but there are ethical issues. If these designs are publicised who is responsible for them once they go live on the internet? The 3D printed gun is a good demonstration of this issue. It was no big deal in America where fire arms are legal- people could just buy a better gun in a shop so what was the problem!? It’s the ability of open source designs to cross boarders that causes the most issues. Cultural and social implications are not considered on the internet. This poses the question : Is the man responsible for the design of the 3D printed gun also responsible for all the deaths that this gun caused? 

All in all I like the concept of open source design. Despite its obvious drawbacks and issues, it brings people together in the design process- if your designing for everyone surely everyone should have the right to get involved. If I was a successful designer would I make my designs open source? - well that’s another question. I’ll get back to you when I’m rich and famous.