In Designer Q&A we sit down and chat with some of the thought leaders in the field of design.
In the third installment of the very popular series (Designer Q&A’s are the most popular articles on design droplets by miles) we sit down with Industrial Designer, regular at Product Design Forums and Blogger C. Sven Johnson, who runs reBang. So grab a coffee, sit back and check out Sven’s views on the future of Product Development Tools, Transreality and potential design futures.
1. Hi Sven. Welcome to design droplets. Can you give us a brief run down on yourself.
Hello, Raph. Thanks for the opportunity. I’ll keep this brief.
I grew up a military brat; raised both in the U.S. and in Europe. I attended the University of Notre Dame where I studied aerospace engineering as a personal prerequisite to pursuing industrial design. After graduation I spent four years in the military – including most of one year in Portland, Oregon managing the extensive overhaul of my ship – which taught me the engineering reality to go along with the theory I’d learned in school. After resigning my commission I returned to college; enrolling in the Cleveland Institute of Art to study industrial design. Since graduating from Cleveland I’ve worked both within a consultancy and as a member of in-house corporate design teams. Since 2003, I’ve been independently consulting for a variety of clients both in and out of the manufacturing arena.
2. Since starting your blog reBang in 2005 you have predominantly been exploring 3D simulations and virtual environments. How did you end up taking an interest in this particular arena, as oppose to the area most industrial designs take interest in – physical objects in the meatspace?
This is a difficult question for me to answer because I don’t perceive my blog as being predominantly about 3D simulation and virtual environments as opposed to physical objects in meatspace. Quite the opposite, in fact. You just have to connect the dots back to tangible products.
However, as to how I developed an interest in 3D simulations and virtual environments as part of the development, marketing, and sale of tangible goods, the answer is pretty simple. I developed a serious interest in this technology around 1998, when I first fully comprehended the connection between the 3D model I was sending out to vendors so they could grow SLA parts, and the 3D model I was using to shoot other players in a videogame. I’d read Gibson and Stephenson, so it didn’t take much for me to extrapolate where the technology was headed.
Later, I began to see the combined technologies – virtual worlds and rapid manufacturing – as part of a potentially much larger cultural and economic shift. From my perspective these tools are the future of product design in ways that go well beyond simple 3D modeling and simulation. Leveraging these and other technologies is what my blog is really about.
3. In your most recent series on reBang “Next Generation Product Development Tools” you have been looking at the future tools of Industrial Designers and thus the future of the Industrial Design Profession. Can talk a bit about where you believe Industrial design and its tools are headed?
Some years ago on the Core77 forum I speculated that the Industrial Design profession would fork. On the one hand we’d have a large number of corporate industrial designers developing commodity goods mostly tied to service contracts of some sort, and on the other hand we’d have industrial designers who would develop their own products, chase niche markets and sell in low volume directly to motivated buyers. Since that time I’ve watched the emergence of sites like Etsy and tracked the rise of the indie urban vinyl toy market. I’ve witnessed the increasing commoditization of most mass-produced products and I may be witness to the collapse of the petroleum-based automobile industry at a time when both electric cars and business models for sharing vehicles are emerging; potentially leading – along with the emergence of China’s automotive sector – to the commoditization of vehicles and an associated rise of related services. I’d say: so far so good.
What I see now that I didn’t perceive back then is the potential for using virtual goods to help drive tangible sales; and vice-versa. As an industrial designer seeking options, I’ve since realized there is very little stopping someone with our skill set from designing and modeling a 3D object, selling the virtual good and using the proceeds to pay for tooling of that same 3D object so that a physical product can then be manufactured and sold. It’s these kinds of business opportunities which I believe will lead some intrepid designers away from design-by-committee careers and into more fulfilling endeavors. And the tools they’ll increasingly use won’t just be standalone CAD applications, but connected, collaborative and immersive 3D spaces with built-in CAD capabilities and direct links to service bureaus.
To be sure, this won’t happen tomorrow or next year, but I believe it will happen within my lifetime, which means it will likely have an impact on designers entering the profession today.
Jar Opener designed by C. Sven Johnson while at Applica.
4. Could you also tell us a bit about transreality technologies, augmented reality and mixed reality convergence?
The terminology is still relatively new and subject to change, so it’s probably best to just provide some loose definitions and a few examples.
Augmented reality is most often associated with technology allowing us to augment the information naturally provided to us by our senses. Perhaps the most common example is the augmented reality headset: a spatially-aware, translucent visor with graphics displayed on it such that the data is associated with a tangible object within the viewer’s broader field of view. For example, an aircraft mechanic wearing an AR headset might see fuel line schematics interactively overlaid on top of a physical airplane as he walks around it in a hangar. A simpler to understand and more common implementation is the use of audio headsets. Some historic tourist sites trigger audio playback using GPS coordinates, thus making the experience more immersive and compelling.
Mixed reality convergence is the perceived merging of our tangible world with digital simulations to produce unique sensory landscapes comprised of real-time interactions between all the different physical and digital elements. For example, instead of just going to a site and augmenting the experience with an audio tour, a three-dimensional hologram might lead people around and take on the form, mannerisms, and voice of the person most closely associated with the artifact being presented. This digital persona could even interact with the audience in real time. The resulting experience is singular, but it’s achieved through mixing “realities”.
Transreality is, by my definition, perceptually and contextually relevant data moving across “reality boundaries”. For example, a child might assemble a virtual car using a videogame’s simplified mechanic’s tools and with it race other children on a shared virtual race track. Games like this already exist. In this example, however, after building the virtual car the child can send his custom design to a local toy store where a tangible product is “manufactured”, either from pre-existing components or from parts which are fabbed on the spot. Once back home, the child logs back onto the virtual racing world and wirelessly transfers the virtual race track configuration to the tangible toy’s memory. In this way, important virtual information is seamlessly moved in the physical world and accessed by the child in a meaningfully relevant manner. The product is different, but the same. The course is different, but the same. Conversely, the tangible toy stores movement or position information and can wirelessly upload this “real” 3D data to the virtual race car which then shares this information with the child’s online associates; perhaps becoming seed data for the creation of a new, collaboratively designed race track.
While this level of data interchange is how I define a transreality product, it’s probably not a definition used by everyone (or anyone). What I hope is apparent, however, is that design has an important role to play both in the deployment and the use of each kind of technology.
5. With 3D and rapid manufacturing taking a more prominent role in Industrial Design, what do you believe will happen to older methods of working up designs and manufacturing them?
My opinion has been that we’ll enter what I’ve been calling a “hybrid manufacturing” age where old and new technologies co-exist. There are examples of hybrid manufacturing today, but it’s still limited. The Turtlcam, a fictional device about which I wrote last Fall, would be an example – albeit a “future imperfect” example – of a product developed at a time when hybrid manufacturing has become or is becoming commonplace.
If I had to guess, I’d venture the hybrid approach to manufacturing will become relatively unremarkable in about twenty years or so, and will then endure for quite some time. While I’m enthusiastic about rapid manufacturing, I try hard to remain realistic. It simply doesn’t make sense to me that additive fabrication (aka “3D printing”) – the technology most often associated with rapid manufacturing – will displace current mass production technology in our lifetimes … and perhaps not for some time after. For one thing, industry has an enormous investment in both tools and people. For another, with minor exception, rapid manufacturing technology has not yet advanced to the stage where it can cost-effectively replace existing manufacturing methods; nor is it likely to reach that stage for some time. The most compelling rapid manufacturing tools are arguably at the same point in their evolution as the computer circa 1980, so it has a ways to go yet. And even if the technology were available in the short term, I don’t believe we’re ready for it; our cultures aren’t ready, our economic systems aren’t ready and our educational institutions aren’t ready. It’ll take time. The Industrial Revolution didn’t happen in a week or a month or a year and neither will this.
6. The Institute for the Future is one of the places you have worked, how did being there help shape your thoughts on the next generation of product development Tools, transreality technologies, augmented reality and mixed reality convergence?
For the record, I didn’t work at the IFTF; I was contracted to help with a project which was sufficiently outside what I typically do as an industrial design consultant that I list it as a separate entry on my LinkedIn profile. That project was Superstruct, the first multi-player online foresight game.
My primary interest in wanting to work on that project was to learn whether a Superstruct “crowd-sourcing” approach to design research was viable. My secondary interests revolved around next generation products and their development, and to that end my involvement provided me with some insight and product concepts I might not otherwise have easily gleaned (the previously mentioned Turtlcam concept among them).
Shotgun Butterfly Mop – designed in house at Rubbermaid by C. Sven Johnson.
7. As well a writings your blog reBang, you also write a monthly column called “Future Imperfect” for Futurismic. How has writing on reBang and at Futurismic helped you grow as a designer?
I think anytime a person articulates their ideas in some public forum and owns those ideas, growth occurs. Whether it’s contacting experts (as I’m doing now) to gain insight on a topic, engaging other designers in discussion, or simply re-evaluating one’s own previously documented position, the process itself is worthwhile. I used to be surprised more designers didn’t engage in professional-level social networking, but now I’ve come to regard the broader industrial community differently; more insular and less curious.
8. I recently came across an outline for a course on Digital Industrial Design, do you think Industrial Design and other design professions that occupy a more digital space than ID will merge to create a new discipline? Or will they stay separated?
I’m not sure what “Digital Industrial Design” is supposed to be, but I think “Industrial” Design is dead; it just doesn’t know it yet. Like Gibson’s unevenly distributed future or Jarmusch’s “Dead Man”, the news of the profession’s demise just hasn’t yet reached or been acknowledged by everyone involved. I wrote as much several years ago on my blog, and some time prior to that on the Core77 forum. I’d like to think I’ve articulated the reasons why industrial design is dead a bit better than Philippe Starck, but I doubt anyone cares.
Toolbox design in-house at Rubbermaid by C. Sven Johnson.
9. You are trained as both an industrial Designer and Aerospace Engineer. Designers and Engineers often contemplate completing a course in the other discipline. Do you have any advice for designers or engineers who are contemplating this?
Stop contemplating and do it; just don’t assume that one course in either discipline is sufficient to understand the thinking processes imprinted on either profession’s graduates. It’s not that simple. However, it’s a great first step.
10. Sven, thank you very much for taking the time to share your insights with us here at design droplets. In closing, do you have any last thoughts or advice you would like to share?
Only that if anyone is interested in discussing these topics further, feel free to contact me through any one of the socnet channels I use; most of which I list – along with my email – on my blog. Oh, and for the record, I don’t smoke. Never have.
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