BA GRAPHIC DESIGN | 2063 words essay
Anna D’Assaro | Group 3 team 1 | DAS11335461
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The Bigger Picture | Anna D’Assaro | Group 3 Team 1
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Introduction
Analysis
Conclusion
Reflection
What is the importance of society’s limitation of self-production in the future?
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The Bigger Picture | Anna D’Assaro | Group 3 Team 1
ns of the behaviour, As a group, we decided to investigate the 3D printing field that is now slowly informing and attracting people, which could possibly be life changing. We also looked at the positive and negative impact that 3D printing will have in our future as designers. We decided to project some of the possible technological advances that 3D printers will have in our life so for our presentation, we presented a graphic novel that shows a life of a young girl in a 2050 scenario.
Group 3 Team 1 | Anna D’Assaro | The Bigger Picture
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Why did we choose to talk about this? 3D printing technology is a fascinating subject for us and for our perspectives as young designers. It was first created and tested for the first time, back in the 80s and it was used for the making of prototypes. Although it has affected people only in the last couple of years,as we are becoming more informed on its applications. It is now contemporary, it’s fresh, it’s appealing, it is uniquely evolving and shaping. It’s rapidly developing power to make new things possible. It does not only meet the design industry but meets so many areas around us, from product design to architecture, health, food and business. Although it has its pros and cons, we have found it relevant to explore it in depth; finding solutions or perhaps face what are the consequences related to different aspects, in a near future. It is important to consider the control we really have over technology as consumers, and how we manage the behaviour of self production.
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The Bigger Picture | Anna D’Assaro | Group 3 Team 1
Group 3 Team 1 | Anna D’Assaro | The Bigger Picture
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What’s the importance on limiting our behaviour of self-production? Copyright Today, we faced the news of the world’s first 3D printed gun named the ‘Liberator’ that was successfully printed and fired in May 2013. It was printed by a libertarian activist group, who published the blueprints for the gun on a file-sharing site called Defcad. The activist group leader said: “I’m seeing a world where technology says you can have pretty much whatever you want. It’s not up to the political players any more”. This is when limitations should be highly considered; we are all beginning to think about copyright in design and the online sharing community and what belongs to whom. We live in a world where everything is continuously shared through the Internet and the social media.
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The Bigger Picture | Anna D’Assaro | Group 3 Team 1
When objects can be described in a digital file, they become much easier to copy and distribute and therefore to pirate. Looking back we can take into consideration the music and film industries for example, and the impact that pirated copies of songs and films have had. Could this be the same for 3D printing? Rules and regulations on copyrights would need to be drastically altered. Although I believe somehow, there will always be a way to gain and share important information, such as downloading a gun and print in your own space and time, we have to find a way to control harmful self-produced items and the allowances of continuous sharing of these files.
Group 3 Team 1 | Anna D’Assaro | The Bigger Picture
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The Bigger Picture | Anna D’Assaro | Group 3 Team 1
Health
Taking copyright into consideration from another point of view such as organ production, could really create some really scary scenarios in a near future. Today the shortage of organ donations is a crisis in the healthcare sector. In the Medical industry, body prosthetics and even organ tissues are in the process of being modelled. This leads to a conclusion of the technology of 3D printing. This has its positives, perhaps even solutions, to save and improve human lives. However, as good as this sounds, it also has its impact if used without limitations for self-production. Hypothetically, in the future, organ donor lists will become either a thing of the past or perhaps real human organs will be reserved for rich people, who want the real thing for their heart transplants. 3D printed organs could be a big resource for the middle class population and of course for the poor people, who can’t afford the massive health care costs and may therefore be involved with the black market perhaps be linked to illegal Trafficking of shoddy printed organs. I cannot imagine a future, where you could easily take some of this information from a sharers web site and print 3D human organs in a click of a button.
Group 3 Team 1 | Anna D’Assaro | The Bigger Picture
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Copyright, manufacturing and distribution Of course, there are obvious concerns to be examined. Today for less than £1,000, 3D printers can be easily purchased and are simple to put together. This means that consequently in the very near future the cost will be even lower, so everyone will be able to have a 3D printer in their own homes. That’s why people should not be given the freedom to create anything they want incase they would use this newfound power dangerously or irresponsibly. I am actually even considering if shopping would still even exist. Or could you simply find the product you want to buy, illegally download the blueprint, and print it out? 3D printing will completely transform the economics of manufacturing. It could demolish the need for factories and subsequently hundreds of thousands of jobs all over the world will disappear As much as I believe this will realisti-
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The Bigger Picture | Anna D’Assaro | Group 3 Team 1
cally happen I also believe that if jobs will disappear it will consequently open new doors and new professions will emerge. 3D printing certainly has the power to transform our current manufacturing standards by breaking the boundaries of design and prototyping. It promotes wide spread innovation and unlimited creativity. In the long-term, this development could undermine modern manufacturing and transform design and limitations of innovation forever. Agile and independent small manufacturers that are able to respond quickly to fluctuating inventories and market demands will replace global supply chains. It will be an interesting journey to watch whether or not 3D printing will become a commonly used design tool. If it does carry on at this speed, in many ways, the emergence of 3D printers could very well cause another Industrial Revolution and become a major turning point in human history.
Group 3 Team 1 | Anna D’Assaro | The Bigger Picture
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“We could take design so far away from what it’s intended, for that it’s no longer functional.” As much as I love and appreciate the fact that one day, consumers will be able to create their own objects, I still feel a bit of a challenge is set for graphic designers. We mainly work with 2D projects, surrounded by printing and digital processes and so this could be the beginning of how we should change our behaviour, learn new skills and go along with this innovative technology. It will totally change the way we think. In general, designers will have to learn to design using 3D printing, not just as a prototyping technology but also as a manufacturing technology. This means designers will also become manufactures. A lot of the time, designers will have a conceptual design that usually goes through a design engineering process which means that the process will loose a lot of design intended for it. Whereas, if
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The Bigger Picture | Anna D’Assaro | Group 3 Team 1
you have a 3D printed product, a designer can really think about the final product and include all the functionality from the beginning of a design, which is one of the really powerful things that 3D printing brings. 3D printing may perhaps change other markets and jobs within the design industry, for example industrial designers, like the way “mass print design online companies” are taking away work from print designers and all those “cookie cutter web design companies” are doing the same for web designers. Another aspect that I am considering is that we should not forget what Design really is and what it aims for. Lisa Harouni is the co-founder of Digital Forming, working in “additive manufacturing” of 3D printing. She is in the front line of a wave who wants to make it
easy for anyone to design and create bespoke products at the click of a button. “Are we giving people too much freedom? We have to be careful of that. We could take design so far away from what it’s intended for that it’s no longer functional.” Design isn’t just an object or something that looks good on a shelf but it is a process that observes a certain situation, providing a solution. It is problem solving and helps make everyday life easier, it is conceptual thinking and it organizes information. Design is made for a reason and provides safeness. That’s why Designers should not be confused with future creators of 3D objects. With all the news and articles I have been researching so far it has been interesting to read that in the future with desktop 3D printers, everyone will be able to “design their own objects”. The thought that everyone will be able to become a “designer” just because they can put their hands on some shared information, learn certain basic skills is a tricky one. As a conclusion, we should all be con-
cerned about the consequences of the use of these machines. We should identify the risks for our environment and waste that will be caused by continuous everyday use of 3D printing. People will be loosing attachment to objects, and will find a need for consistent creation for one-off objects. Consequently what would happen to the environment and waste? Where will all these no longer needed objects go after we get tired of them? Would the materials used in these printers be recycled afterwards? This is seriously something that should be looked at straight away. Bringing the nascent 3D printing industry together with experts in waste management could help to make this new technology contribute to rather than challenge our ambitions for a zero waste economy later on. The technology has come a long way since then but still has a long way to go. We are shaping technology as much as it is shaping us; one day, everything and anything will be able to be made by anyone. As Marshall McLuhan, a Canadian professor of English literature once said: “We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.”
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The Bigger picture unit has affected me a lot since the start. It has only been a short period of four weeks but I was able to explore some very interesting entities. The fact that in the first week, we had the possibility to be exposed to different points of education such as psychology and anthropology, has been motivating me, to reflect in depth on some really interesting design contextual issues, and that perhaps it can help me with future project implications. It was also quite interesting to see, how we all agree or disagree in some circumstances and was good to read other people’s thought on our blogs about these lectures. More than before, I can see design everywhere; I am now embracing it from a range of perspectives. Design is implicated in everything around us. It is psychology; it is anthropology and new technology. In relation to the group discussion, I learnt how much more you could do as a group. We all agree and disagree on matters but at the end of the day this is what bigger picture brings to you. I was lucky enough to work with students that were as ambitious as myself. We all worked well togeth-
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The Bigger Picture | Anna D’Assaro | Group 3 Team 1
er from day one, everyday, from morning to night, to be able to present to other fellow students, such an amazing and innovative topic like 3D printing. I usually tend to work on my own within the course so for me it has been challenging to be able to establish a relationship with four other students. I was able to work well in a group, even though we all came from different pathways. As an ambitious group, we decided to push our boundaries and try to present along our formal presentation, something that would create interest and be remembered; creating an outcome that would synthesize our ideas and create debates. I loved the fact that I was able to use my personal skills in the process and as a result of this unit I feel more confident in group work and presentations. It is said that designers aren’t good writers but this experience has definitely helped me to prove myself wrong. Design is and will always be a good reason for discussion, a good reason to exchange ideas, information and to shape you, for who you are and what you stand for as a designer.
Book Fabricated: The New World of 3D Printing Hod Lipson & Melba Kurman Book’s Chapter: Tomorrow’s economy of printable products Published in 2013 Web article 3-D Printing: The Technology that could Re-Shape the World The Telegraph - By Shane Richmond Published 28 Jul 2011
Bibliography
Video Lisa Harouni’s talk at Wired 2011 Wired Magazine – By Lisa Harouni’s and Chris Andersen’s Published 8 Nov 2011 Video Australian police demonstrate ‘catastrophic’ dangers of 3D printed guns Published 28 May 2013 Magazine The Economist - Print me a Stradivarius Feb 10th 2011 | From the print edition Digital magazine The future of Industry The Science Museum Published 09 Oct 2013 Exhibition Science museum 3D: printing the future Visited 30 Nov 2013 Video Anthony Atala: Printing a human kidney Ted - YouTube video Published on 8 Mar 2011 Web article What 3D printing really offers artists and designers Digital Arts 11 October 2013 Video Marshall McLuhan From the heritage minutes collection “We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.” Video Will 3D Printing Change the World? Off Book | PBS Digital Studios YouTube video Published on Feb 28, 2013