Roel Kaassen Peter Troxler

Roel Klaassen: Looking at recent and future developments in design in the Netherlands, Droog has played an important part, perhaps even a key role. One of your latest projects is about design that can be downloaded. Are you giving your designs to users so they can modify them?

Renny Ramakers: We started the Downloadable Design DOWNLOADABLE DESIGN project together with Waag Society because we saw that designers these days make products that could be downloaded very easily, but aren’t available for download. Take Jurgen Bey’s design for our store in New York, for example. Even though it’s based completely on laser cutting, it is constructed from so many parts and its assembly involves so much manual labour that it is not possible at this stage to offer it as a downloadable design.

We’ve seen the idea of flat-pack products that you assemble yourself, and are seeing the growth of the 3D printer,  PRINTING which can now be used to create physical objects from various designs. These concepts looked interesting, so we thought: let’s see if we can build a platform for these kinds of designs. Together with early internet pioneer Michiel Frackers and designer Joris Laarman, we are now working on the realization of this platform, which will be released as Make-Me.com.

We set up the project with the aim of achieving a number of goals. First, we wanted to eliminate some of the many steps between design and production, so the products become cheaper, similar in a sense to what IKEA has done. Compressing the process is an important reason. We know from our experience with producing designs that it may take up to two years before a finished product reaches the shops. Two years is a tremendously long time, so it’s interesting to explore whether designers would be able to design products without this second part of the process. It could be a very interesting development. Second, if you produce locally, you cut down on the need for transport. Reducing transport adds an ecological benefit. Third, local production on demand means that you don’t need to have your products in stock. This constitutes an economic advantage. From the consumer’s perspective, providing everybody access to design products also has value. Design is everywhere: even the most inane magazines feature design. However, a high level of design isn’t available to most end users; our products are just too expensive for the people who read those magazines. As a result, people end up going to stores like IKEA. We think that Downloadable Design will make it possible for us to bring our products within reach for people who would not otherwise be able to afford them. All these end users would have to do is assemble the product themselves.

Take Jurgen Bey’s design for our store. Even though it’s based on laser cutting, it is constructed from so many parts and its assembly involves so much manual labour that it is not possible at this stage to offer it as a downloadable design.

This leads me to another aspect: do it yourself, or DIY.  DIY There are countless DIY shows on TV; DIY is everywhere. So we thought: what if we not only made design products cheaper, but also introduced more variety. How many times have you found almost the perfect table, but it’s only 80 cm wide and you need a table that’s 90 cm or 120 cm wide to fit in your living room? In so many cases, your house is too small or too big for the standard sizes. What if you could adapt all these measurements to suit your space? That would be hugely practical, much more functional. Or you could choose your own colour, to make it your own thing. Downloadable design is also a form of co-creation.  CO-CREATION

Challenging the creativity of designers is yet another reason, and a very important one. Designers have to adapt their design process to the platform. They have to figure out which parameters of the product can vary, while still earning a profit. What we did here was not just to ask the designers to design a product and have the consumer choose a colour or a pattern; that’s already been done. We asked them to be creative and think of completely different ways for consumers to interact with the design. We also challenged designers to consider how they would make money on their design. We asked them to be creative in what they would offer for free and what they could be offering for an added fee. What if there could be layers in a design? For example, a product could be more expensive if it bears the designer’s signature. The business model requires creativity, too, and it is the most challenging part. As I said, we were inspired by laser cutting and digital technology, but our focus is not limited to digital technology; we also want to revitalize craftsmanship.

We plan to set up a whole network of small studios for highly skilled crafts; as I’ve discovered, it is not easy for small-scale workshops to survive. This network of craftspeople is as important to us as the 3D printers and laser cutters. The emphasis on craftsmanship is crucial, particularly since Ponoko and Shapeways are already offering 3D printing and laser-cut products. AESTHETICS: 2D I think that including crafts gives us a distinctive edge. It also facilitates cross-pollination by introducing digital technology into crafts workshops and vice versa. Finally, using local materials is also important to us; local sourcing is a high priority.

Let me zoom in on making money. Designers have to come up with new business models. Do you have ideas or examples from your experience with the Downloadable Design platform?

At this stage, the designers are not there yet; they are just getting started. One designer came up with an interesting suggestion: as you download a product, say a chair, you receive more and more pixels. If people could stop a download half-way, they could get the design for free, but it would be incomplete or low-resolution. If they decide to download the whole product, they would have to pay for the privilege.
Another idea was to offer an interior design service, so customers could have their interiors custom-made to suit their individual needs, based on variable designs that would be available on the platform. They would pay for the customization rather than for the products. Rather than buying a ready-made cupboard, they would pay to have the basic design adapted to their individual requirements.  MASS CUSTOMIZATION

In so many cases, your house is too small or too big for the standard sizes. What if you could adapt all these measurements to suit your space?

I asked the designers to think of different stages, different levels or different services; to think of a way to create a need for their services. While this is the most obvious idea, it’s not easy for a designer to conceive a product that generates demand for a service. It’s easy to do that with something like a phone, which comes with software, but it becomes a real challenge when you’re working with purely physical products. But there is another difficulty: customers have to get used to customization. Take the example of Blueprint, a physical blueprint of a home — or rather parts of a home — in blue Styrofoam which Jurgen Bey designed the Droog shop in New York. The idea was that people would buy the products but could specify the materials to their own liking. There’s a display model of a complete fireplace in blue foam, with a chimney and everything. If somebody wants to have this fireplace in their home, they could have it that shape done in tiles or bricks. But people don’t dare to buy it like that; they first want to see it for real, as a tangible object. They want to know what material it is made of, what it looks like, how it feels. We’ve learned that a project like that could only work if you produced an actual, physical specimen and offered that for sale.

Similarly, people don’t want to make all their clothes by hand themselves; they want to try the garments on in the shop to see how they’ll look. We’ve also discussed whether we would want to offer a separate category of designs: to expand what we offer, not only for download but also for sale. But what would be the point of a platform for downloadable design if you also have a web shop? Not having a standard web shop is one of the important reasons why I’m working on this project, so we’re not going to have one. However, the fact that this topic keeps cropping up is certainly a sign of things to come.

What do you feel it signifies? Is it just laziness on the part of the consumer?

No, it’s a lack of confidence. Changing the colour of your sneakers at Nike ID is less of an issue.

I’ve done it once; it was quite fun.

But now try doing that for a whole cupboard or bookcase, a design that would become a physical object. Imagine that you could change all the parameters. Not just an option for customization, but a required part of the process. You would have to specify each and every aspect. So the question is, wouldn’t people rather go to a shop and simply buy a cupboard?

It may have to do with lack of confidence. Also, not everyone is an expert in interior design. That’s also why standard furniture exists. Not everyone starts out with an empty floor plan. All those consultants and home decoration centres are there to help people define their interior design preferences. This is a separate issue from the presumed lack of confidence; you could call it ‘assisted design literacy’: how to design your own world.

We would be willing to help people. All these design magazines offer plenty of advice on home decoration, and there does seem to be a demand for it. But then we need to consider the extent to which design can be open. I remember modular furniture in the 60s. People wanted to see examples, too, back in those days; they wanted to see a visual impression of the best way to combine those modules. These are investments that people make. Downloading something that’s purely digital doesn’t cost much.

And if you don’t like it, it’s not a big deal.

But with downloadable design,  DOWNLOADABLE DESIGN people really need to take the next step. It means that they would have to go to a workshop to have the product made, or they would need to make it themselves. You say that it sounds like fun, but I doubt it would be fun for the majority of people out there; they wouldn’t want to take the time. That even holds true for me; I wouldn’t want to do it either. I’ve got other things to do.

This trend, this movement, this development: how does it change the design profession?

Designers have always wanted to work for the general public. in the 1920s and ‘30s, it was products for the masses that they wanted to design. Designers gave directions for how to make things that were good for the masses, and the belief was that the masses needed to be educated. Then, in the 1960s, there was an emancipation of the masses. The re-industrialization led to incredible market segmentation, so the masses had more choices and could buy more. As a result, designers started to follow the preferences of the masses. When the market is saturated, it becomes segmented; it’s a logical progression.

If you download music, You can start listening to it immediately. Design is different; you still need to go somewhere to have it made, or you have to make it yourself.

After that, a counter-movement emerged, as evidenced by Memphis and Alchimia, who got their inspiration from the choices of the masses and used it to design highly exclusive products. The inspiration from the masses has always been there, always. However, design is always a top-down process.

In the 1990s, some designers started to turn away from an overly designed environment; they reached a saturation point. They were interested in the fluidity of form. These designers would initiate a process, then stop the transformation at an interesting point and produce the result. It was presented as a free-form exercise, but it was very much directed by the designers.

New opportunities are emerging from the Internet and from digital fabrication, which means that the masses can start to participate in design.

That seems like a logical next step, at least from your perspective. But when I look at the products showcased on sites like Ponoko and Shapeways, I am concerned that the result will be a huge volume of unattractive and clunky design. This trend will not end well.  AESTHETICS: 2D

You say this as an expert in design?

I say it as a human being. I am worried that this trend will spread like a virus. In my opinion, the internet has brought us a lot of ugly stuff. There have been a lot of beautiful things, too, but a lot of ugly ones. Leaving people to their own devices… I don’t oppose it on principle, but it’s not my thing.

The design world draws inspiration from these developments, but these trends are not all that’s going on. Looking at what’s going on in the design world, the designers we work with and the projects we work on, I see two things happening. On the one hand, there is the open source story, which is about trying to find possibilities for participation; that goal is in line with the principles we espouse.

The other side is a devotion to local sourcing, a type of anti-globalism.  MANIFESTOS Many designers are concerned about the transparency of production processes and would like to see more use of local materials and local sources. That is part of our platform, too, since we want to encourage working with local sources and local workshops. Another important issue at the moment is sustainability, the concept of relying on renewable resources.

Designers are becoming entrepreneurs. By telling them to create their own way to make money, we relate to their sense of entrepreneurship. However, the concept of finding their own innovative ways to earn a profit has not yet been developed. This is a real challenge; they really have to make that mental shift towards entrepreneurial design.

On the one hand, there are designers like Tord Boontje,  DESIGNERS who distributed the design of his chair as a file as early as the 1990s. These digital designs were the start of a growing trend, but the content was static. There wasn’t much you could do with it, other than possibly choosing a different upholstery fabric; the idea was simply to distribute it as-is. It was essentially a predecessor of open design. As a designer today, I can imagine that I would have to get used to deciding what to give away for free and what to keep. I would define the parameters, but to what extent would I really have to relinquish control of my design? It is an interesting dynamic, and designers do need to maintain a creative focus on it.

Another issue that I’ve noticed is that designers do not really believe that consumers would download their designs. If you download music, then you have it and you can start listening to it immediately. Design is different; you still need to go somewhere to have it made, or you have to make it yourself. That’s more onerous.

People are too scared to add their own contribution to a lamp they bought for about 100 euros.

The Downloadable Design platform is a learning process for us, too. We started it as an exploration of a concept, and we want to investigate it thoroughly. It is important for us that the platform is curated, that we have a certain amount of control over what is put on the platform. We are playing around with ideas for allowing people to upload things, but I’m still undecided about whether or not I want to do it. In any case, I would want uploads to be related to the designs being posted by our designers. Maybe people could upload how they made the products they downloaded, so it would remain within the parameters defined by the designer.

Open design as a new way of designing. What does that mean to you?

At Droog, we’ve been doing open design all along, right from the start. Our work has always been connected to projects or events.  EVENTS We’ve always been interested in the interaction with consumers. Consistently, one of the key elements in our work has been that consumers could personalize a design, that our designs had an element of fun, pleasure or interactive co-creation.  CO-CREATION

A very good example is do create, a concept that we realized in collaboration with the KesselsKramer PR agency in 2000. ¹ One of the projects was do scratch by Martí Guixé, a lamp that’s covered in black paint. People were supposed to scrape patterns in the paint to create their own drawing. This lamp has been sitting around in the shop for seven, eight years, and nobody has ever bought one. People are too scared to add their own contribution to a lamp they bought for about 100 euros. Even when we added sample drawings that people could copy onto the lamp themselves, nobody would buy it. We only started selling the lamp when we had artists do the drawings. After that experience, we decided not to continue this product. This type of interactive design did not seem to work.

Then, in 2008, we did Urban Play in Amsterdam, which also involved a contribution by Martí Guixé. ² It was a large cube built from blocks of autoclaved aerated concrete or AAC, a low-density, non-toxic material that can be carved very easily. The idea of this Sculpture Me Point was that everybody could add their own sculpture. Everybody chopped away from day one, but after six weeks the result was deplorable. So we ended up with two questions. A, are people willing to do something? And B, what happens when people actually do it; is the result interesting?

Did you do further research on co-creation involving interaction with users? What did it reveal?

One of the projects that started from the Droog Lab is a digital platform for co-creation invented by Jurgen Bey and Saskia van Drimmelen. That comes fairly close. It is about co-creation,  CO-CREATION but it provides a platform for designers to work with other designers. Jurgen and Saskia moderate participation; only people they find interesting can get involved. It is extremely curated; they decide who gets in, who stays out, and who will be making something together, but they also allow room for people’s individual development. We are also working on a different platform which is about ‘upcycling’ dead stock from producers. The aim here is to make dead stock accessible for designers. It’s got nothing to do with using digital technology; it is about all the material that would otherwise simply be thrown away. In point of fact, most of these discarded products get recycled.  RECYCLING But the point here is that all those designs vanish into thin air. Thousands of shavers just disappear. A designer designed them; a certain amount of development went into them. Costs were incurred, and a lot of energy was spent. That’s another development we’re pursuing: we try to direct design towards re-designing what already exists.

China, for instance, might be coming to the end of its tenure as a cheap manufacturer pretty soon. That’s one of the reasons why we started Downloadable Design: to invent new systems.

Again, this is about the creativity of designers. In some sense, it could be considered co-creation, since a designer is building on something created by another designer. The challenge here is whether it is allowed. Somebody designed it, but now it’s dead stock that the company would rather throw away than have us picking it up and putting designers to work on it. There are very loose links to co-creation, to bottom-up design. More importantly, however, these are all developments that are part of what is happening now. So much more is going on now; the bottom-up part is only a small proportion of it.

You talked earlier about services, mentioning the example of interior design. The interesting thing is that you link the designer to the consumer directly, rather than through a middleman or organization.

That truly is a development that is happening right now. Take the fashion collective Painted, for example; they would love to make products for the user. The designers would prefer to make clothes for real people, not averaged-out stuff in shops; they would much rather make things one-on-one, in direct contact with the user. And I think that this really what’s going on in design at this very moment.

Distribution and the middle links in the production process are issues that IKEA has started addressing. We have first-hand experience with how much energy, money and time it costs. Everyone is trying to invent something to mitigate this problem, be it Downloadable Design or a designer who works directly for the customer. That’s where everybody is looking for solutions at the moment. It has to do with the current system; the whole production chain is starting to fall apart. There are environmental questions, economic questions, questions about production in developing countries. Not long ago, everybody was starting to have their stuff made in developing countries, but people in those countries are starting to earn more. China, for instance, might be coming to the end of its tenure as a cheap manufacturer pretty soon. That’s one of the reasons why we started Downloadable Design: to invent new systems.

Our other answer is a resolution of the dead stock issue. If we develop a system in which products are not thrown away, but instead are ‘upcycled’ and brought back into circulation, then we would not need to use so much new raw material; we could use what we already have. There are a few things that need to happen before people start adopting the concept, but we are interested in exploring systems to see how we could create new incentives for creativity, but also how we could start to fix the ecological and economic problems.
In the Droog Lab we are addressing yet another issue: the problem of globalization.  TREND: GLOBALIZATION You see the same stuff everywhere; you get the same retail chains everywhere; you get shopping malls everywhere. High-rise buildings are springing up all over the place; food travels all over the planet with no consideration of what’s in season. These examples are part of an incredible and very special aspect of globalization that makes people forget where things come from. People start to take everything for granted and lose touch with what is part of their own culture. That’s why we set up this lab, as a system to develop creativity based on local conditions, based on how people live and work. We want to develop creative ideas that come from talking to normal people – a taxi driver, a hair dresser – not graduates from an arts academy.  GRASSROOTS INVENTION This approach allows us to get to the heart of the matter, achieving a comprehensive understanding of how creative ideas are viewed by the end users. The aim is for designers come back with so much inspiration that they are able to develop new ideas in a global context.

We want to develop creative ideas that come from talking to normal people – a taxi driver, a hairdresser – not graduates from an arts academy.

Led by Jurgen and Saskia, the Droog al Arab team came back from the Droog Lab project in Dubai with the idea for a platform for co-creation.  CO-CREATION After seeing all these shopping malls, they have seen how the current system of mass production is a one-way street that leaves consumers in the dark about how things are produced. On their platform, they want to show how things are designed, especially how they are designed collaboratively, and they want to establish contact with customers and producers on that single platform.  MASS CUSTOMIZATION

In another project being done in the suburbs of New York, the team led by Diller, Scofiodio + Renfro wants to bring new life to these emptying satellite towns by turning residents into entrepreneurs. An amateur chef might start a sideline as a restaurant owner, or a person might open an informal library because they have a lot of books. Our designers are not at all interested in downloadables and the like, but they are investigating what happens at that level and developing ways to react to it creatively. At that point, they step back let the residents do their own thing. It’s such a fun project. Imagine going to visit a suburb, and discovering that one house has become a restaurant, another one a library, and another one a café. Imagine that somebody opened a cinema simply because they had a projector. All the fun things are available again, and people don’t have to leave the neighbourhood to find them. It creates a renewed sense of community.

Imagine that somebody opened a cinema simply because they had a projector.

On the one hand, I am fascinated to see what those people are actually going to do. On the other hand, I am interested in how we are blurring the boundaries between public and private; essentially, we are asking people to fulfil a public role in their private home. Accepting that involvement could even have an influence on the architecture of these people’s homes. What will houses look like if suburbs develop in that direction? If everybody, or at least a significant part of the population, becomes entrepreneurs, then their homes will look differently. Their private residence will include a public section.

That’s exactly why I do these things. I always return to the challenge of inventing a system, a method of generating innovation, regardless of how it happens. Downloadable Design, innovating the designer, upcycling dead stock, working within the local context, whatever. For me, these are all parts of the same story, facets of one whole entity. Maybe, two months from now, I will have dreamed up something else, have had yet another idea.

Those are a few of the projects we are running at the moment. All these initiatives are born from the same motivation: a sense of curiosity about the user, and a drive to bring innovation to design in a different way, by developing fresh methods while never forgetting that design is also fun.

Joos Smiers

It was in 1993 that I started to realize that intellectual property rights – such as copyrights and patents – are steadily privatizing most of the public knowledge and creativity that our communities have developed and cultivated over centuries. Around the same time, I heard that farmers in India were staging massive protests. They faced the threat that seeds they had used for years to plant their crops would be slightly modified (or ‘improved’) by multinational agricultural companies like Monsanto, and that this tiny change would make those companies the owners of this ‘new’ knowledge.  KNOWLEDGE What those farmers and their grandparents, and generations before them, had developed in their communities over the course of centuries could, with a single stroke of the pen, become the sole and exclusive property of a major corporation. These are the selfsame corporations, most of which are based in Western countries, that dominate agricultural markets all over the world.

Is this what IP rights are really doing? Privatizing knowledge and creativity on a massive scale?

I was suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of cynicism. Is this what intellectual property rights are really doing? Privatizing knowledge and creativity on a massive and unprecedented scale? What could possibly justify such a bold move? It was a small step for me to extrapolate these principles from the seeds of Indian farmers to copyrights on works of art and design, which is another form of privatization. Certainly, it could be argued that every new contributor – every person who modifies or adapts seeds, words, music, design, or chemical processes – adds something to what has been developed by his predecessors. But is this a valid reason to hand over absolute ownership to the latest producer, keeping in mind that we will need this knowledge and creativity for further developments? Privatization in this context means that the product can no longer be used for common purposes, unless the ‘owner’ of this knowledge and creativity grants permission – and we pay the price that ‘owner’ sets for it. Never before in recorded history, in any culture, has intellectual misappropriation taken place on such a grand scale as what we have seen in the Western world over the past century, expanding exponentially since the 1990s.

It soon became clear to me — long before Napster and the increasing popularity of open source software — that we have to seriously question whether or not we really need to have intellectual property rights. My main concern, in the context of copyright for artists, entertainers and designers, was that they should have the chance to make a living. There can be no doubt that the present copyright system is extremely beneficial for a few best-selling artists, and fails almost entirely to benefit the majority of creative professionals. How can the market be improved to include a better financial situation for most of the artists and designers? Moreover, can we achieve that goal by keeping the sources of our knowledge and creativity in common hands instead of privatizing them?

During the 1990s, more people started to feel uneasy with our current copyright system, partly due to the opportunities offered by digitization. Concepts like free culture, open source and Creative Commons became fashionable.  ACTIVISM However, these concepts and the practices associated with them are less than helpful when it comes to creating a fairer market for creative professionals. With such a strong emphasis on ‘free’ access and sharing, how can this be the right answer for artists and designers seeking to earn a living from their work? In addition, these developments do nothing to reform current structures and power relations, in which a few huge enterprises dominate cultural markets. Aside from issues of democratic process, such companies artificially exclude from public view all artists who are not big stars, essentially pushing them out of the limelight. To assure a reasonable income for many artists and to stop the privatization of our common knowledge and creativity, a more fundamental answer must be found for the challenges we face.

What if We Would Abandon Copyright?

Suppose we were to leave copyright law behind us. Would it then be possible to structure a market in such a way that protection by copyright law would become unnecessary? The first question that springs to mind is what we would want to achieve in that cultural market. The answers follow from imbalances in the current structure.

→ Many more artists should be able to earn a reasonable income from their work.

→ The resources of production, distribution and promotion should have numerous owners, and access should be given more liberally.

→ An extensive database of knowledge and artistic creativity should exist in the public domain, freely available to all.

→ Audiences should not be overwhelmed by PR efforts aimed at marketing a small number of top stars. Instead, people should be freely exposed to a wide variety of cultural expressions, from which they can make their own choices.

How might all this be achieved? My starting point, which may come as a surprise, is the cultural entrepreneur. This individual could be the artist or designer himself, or someone who represents him or her, or a producer, publisher or commissioning client. The major characteristic of an entrepreneur is that he or she takes a risk in a chosen field, which in itself presents its own specific opportunities and threats. In this case, our field could be defined as ‘cultural activity’, a sweeping title which could also refer to the entertainment industry or to various forms of content production. The field in which the cultural entrepreneur operates bears some similarities to any other business; the cultural entrepreneur should think and act pro-actively. This individual should, in other words, be capable of staying one step ahead of the competition, try to stay on top of potential threats and opportunities, and be acutely aware of what is happening, both in his or her immediate surroundings and in the wider world.

However, a factor seldom mentioned in the context of entrepreneurship is the conditions that facilitate or obstruct risk-taking behaviour. How could such a market be constructed? How should the balance of power be organized, and what kind of regulations should set the limits and offer opportunities for the scope of entrepreneurship?

The Two Controlling Markets

The present cultural markets exhibit two forms of negative dominance. The first is copyright law. Copyright in its current form gives the owner control over the use of a work, with all the consequences that this entails. As an investment protection, it works well for best-sellers, pop stars and cinematic blockbusters, but at the same disrupts the diversity in cultural markets in ways that are harmful for cultural democracy. The second form of market control, monopolization, is often inadvertently overlooked in debates on this topic. Simply put, a limited number of conglomerates worldwide have a strong grip on the production, distribution, promotion and creation of films, music, books, design, visual arts, shows and musicals, as well as the conditions for how these creative expressions are received. Their influence also extends – even more than expected – into the digital domain.

These two forms of market domination go hand in hand. The exciting challenge is to find out whether eliminating both forms of market domination would create a more normal level playing field – whether it would be possible to achieve an environment in which no single party is able to control or influence the market or the market behaviour of others to any substantial degree. In this context, I feel that it is crucial for many cultural entrepreneurs – creative professionals, their representatives, agents, producers, publishers and so on – to actually be able to fully take part in the market.

What is currently keeping them from this level of participation? There is no single answer to that question. Yes, there are thousands and thousands of artists and designers producing work and therefore theoretically taking part in the market. However, they are often pushed out of public view by the omnipresence of the major cultural conglomerates. They do not have a fair chance to trade. Under these circumstances, it is made extremely difficult, to say the least, to bear the risk inherent in entrepreneurship. In essence, access to the cultural market – and therefore to audiences, clients and the opportunity to earn money – is severely limited for the vast majority of cultural entrepreneurs, but wide open for a few cultural giants, which continue to grow through mergers.

The Power of the Giants

These huge enterprises also hold the copyright to a vast number of the products that they market. As copyright holders, they have an even greater stranglehold on the market, as they are the only ones that can determine whether, how and where a vast quantity of work is used. They decide which cultural products are available in the market; they dictate which kinds of content are considered acceptable and appealing, and can determine the atmosphere in which they are enjoyed, consumed or used. Their works may not be changed or undermined, either, and alternative narratives would be banned.

The majority of cultural entrepreneurs have minimal access. Many, even the mid-level ones, enter a market – if they succeed – where a few giants determine the atmosphere and appeal of what they themselves have on offer, often having to compete against big stars and ‘famous’ designers.  DESIGNERS In this doubly dicey position, where a few major players not only dominate the market but also determine the atmosphere of the cultural playing field, it is not entirely impossible to succeed, but it is very difficult for many smaller and mid-level entrepreneurs to achieve any kind of profitable position in which they can survive.

A Proposal for a New Market

To achieve a level playing field in this cultural market, I see no other alternative than to undertake two simultaneous courses of action: first scrap copyright, and then make sure that no market domination of any kind exists with regard to production, distribution and marketing. So how does this work?

Abolishing copyright means it is no longer attractive for entrepreneurs to invest lavishly in blockbuster films, best-selling books or rising pop stars. After all, there is no longer any protection making those works exclusive. If this system were to be implemented, anyone could, in principle, change or exploit the works the next day. So why make such exorbitant investments any longer? Naturally, it is not forbidden. Anyone who wants to can go ahead, but the investment protection that copyright offered – that privileged exclusivity – is no longer available.

There should be many different players in all markets, and society should be responsible for imposing the conditions.

Does that mean, for example, that there will be no more epic films made? Who knows? Perhaps in an animated form. Is that a loss? Maybe, maybe not. It would not be the first time in history that a genre had disappeared due to changing production circumstances. Historically, as genres have vanished, others have appeared to replace them and become incredibly popular. It is not unthinkable that people will get used to the change very quickly. Moreover, there is no reason to offer investment protection to large-scale productions supported by excessive marketing that, in fact, pushes true cultural diversity to the outermost fringes of the market.

The second course of action I propose is to normalize market conditions. This may be even more drastic than abolishing copyright, a proposition which has become increasingly feasible over the past few years. As stated previously, no one party should control prices, quality, range, employment conditions, market access for other parties, or anything else, in any market. Similarly, no one party should be able to act with impunity, without regard for any other social considerations. In other words, there should be many different players in all markets, and society should be responsible for imposing the conditions under which they operate.

What applies to the economy in general surely applies even more to our human communication through artistic media. What we see, hear and read contributes extensively to the forming of our identities, in the plural. It cannot be stressed enough that there should therefore be many, many enterprises in the cultural field; instead of being pushed away from public attention by excessively strong forces, they should be able to offer their cultural wares from totally different perspective. I view that point as non-negotiable.

The Consequences

If such a dramatic restructuring took place, what would the result look like? There would no longer be any conglomerates dominating the production, distribution, promotion and creation of creative work or dictating the conditions for how artistic works were received. The scale of such enterprises would be reduced considerably, ranging somewhere between medium-sized and small. How could this landslide of change be brought about? Most countries have regulatory tools at their disposal in the form of competition or anti-trust laws, which are intended to level the playing field in every market – including the cultural market.

What should be happening is a fundamental investigation of anything that hints at an excessively dominant position in cultural markets, including design. That investigation should, perhaps, be one of the primary aspects of cultural policy. Imagine that large combinations of capital, assets, market positions, and production and distribution facilities were to be divided into many smaller pieces. After all, this is what we have been discussing for the cultural and media sectors in our societies. It may come as a surprise that this is even more necessary in the highly networked digital world, where it tends to be ‘winner-take-all’.

Suppose that the cultural market could be normalized, that a level playing field could be attained. Can the objectives I formulated earlier be achieved there? I think so. There are no longer any obstacles to many cultural entrepreneurs taking the plunge and accepting the risks. Enterprise always entails risk; it goes with the territory. There have always been some artists and entrepreneurs who have dared to brave those risks. In this new market, many of these cultural entrepreneurs can take risks with more confidence. Irrepressibly, those entrepreneurs will evolve in every corner of the cultural universe, serving audiences with a varied range of artistic creations and performances. What used to be niche markets can begin drawing larger audiences than had ever been deemed possible.

If the cultural conglomerates’ overkill marketing is no longer being dumped onto the populace en masse, then current and potential audiences are more than likely to develop interests in a wider variety of trends. Why not? Man is essentially a curious creature and has individual preferences on how he would like to be entertained or accompanied, as evidenced by the varied expressions of culture that people seek out as comfort in moments of grief. If those preferences are no longer being drowned out by a dominant few, then more room is created for far more individual choice.

Despite that individuality, man is also something of a pack animal.  TREND: GLOBALIZATION People will therefore in all probability cluster more around one particular artist than around others. That artist then becomes a ‘well-seller’. In our imagined scenario, the artist can never take that supreme step up to become a best-seller, since the market conditions that made that possible are simply no longer there. A normalized market for the public domain of artistic creativity and knowledge has turned out to be extraordinarily beneficial in our example. After all, artistic material and knowledge can no longer be privatized, and therefore remain the property of us all. There is not a single company left that can monopolize production, processing and distribution, either.
Now it gets interesting: how well does this thought experiment translate into practice? Could a real, functioning market conceivably be created under the conditions that I have formulated, in which devious thieves will be unable to seize their opportunity before taking to their heels? In other words, can numerous artists, their representatives, intermediaries, commissioning parties or producers earn a good living in that market? Are the risks of enterprise acceptable? Do they also have reason to believe that their work will be treated with the appropriate respect?

Let’s start with the question as to whether it is likely that creative work will be used by others without payment. Is there any reason to assume that another cultural entrepreneur will pop up and exploit it immediately after release? In principle, that would indeed be possible without copyright law. Nevertheless, there are several reasons why this is unlikely. First of all, there is the ‘prime mover’ effect. The original publisher or producer is the first in the market, which gives him an advantage. Naturally, with digitization, that prime mover effect can diminish to a few minutes, but that’s not an insurmountable problem in itself. Most artistic work is not famous enough for free-riders to fall on it like hawks. Moreover, an increasingly important factor is that artists and related entrepreneurs add a specific value to their work that no one else can imitate. Building up a reputation may not be half the work, but it is a significant factor. Remember, we are assuming that there are no longer any dominant parties in the market. There are no longer any big companies to think they could easily ‘steal’ a recently published and well-received work because, for example, they control the distribution and promotion channels. In this scenario, they simply no longer exist.

As a normal market emerges, many artists and designers will be earning better than ever before.

In the absence of copyright, there can now be no question of theft; still, free-rider behaviour is an undesirable occurrence. In fact, there are twenty, thirty, forty, or innumerable other companies that could come up with the same idea. With this reality in mind, it becomes less likely, even very unlikely, that another company will put the money and effort into remarketing a work that has already been released. Should one be concerned that someone other than the initiator and risk bearer merrily walks off with a work that belongs to the public domain? It won’t come to that. Investments go hopelessly up in smoke when numerous parties are willing to take a free-rider gamble. In that case, the first creator almost certainly remains the only one to continue exploiting the work; no one benefits from trying to take it over.

Let me remind you that the two courses of action I proposed earlier have to be taken simultaneously. Abolishing copyright should not be an isolated action. It has to be accompanied by the application of competition or anti-trust law and market regulation in favour of diversity of cultural ownership and content. Only then there will be a market structure that discourages free-rider behaviour.

It can happen that a specific work does really well. In that case, another entrepreneur could include it in his repertoire, make ‘legal’ copies, or promote it in his own circles. Is that a problem? Not really, since he or she will not be the only one able to do so. Moreover, if the first entrepreneur has gauged the market accurately and remains alert, then he will have a good head start on all others. The first entrepreneur can also offer the work in a less expensive version, for example, which doesn’t encourage competition. Nevertheless, successful works will certainly be exploited by others. That does not pose a serious problem, as the work has obviously already generated a lot of money for the author and the first producer or publisher. A legal copy or new presentation then only serves to enhance the author’s fame, which he or she can capitalize on  CREATIVE COMMONS in many different ways.

The Power to the Masses

I already mentioned briefly above that, if the market is structured as I propose, the phenomenon of best-sellers will be a thing of the past. That would be culturally beneficial, as real room is created in the artists tastes of people world-wide, encouraging a far greater diversity in forms of artistic expression. The economic consequence is that a tremendous amount of cultural entrepreneurs, including designers, can operate profitably in the market without being pushed out of the limelight by the big stars. At the same time, it has been established that some artists and designers often succeed in attracting more publicity than others. This will not make them best-sellers, as there are no longer any mechanisms for boosting them to worldwide fame. They become well-sellers. Besides being a nice position to be in as an artist, it would also be economically beneficial for the artists and for their producers, publishers and other intermediaries.

Another appealing effect is that the income gap between artists would take on more normal proportions. Before, the difference between rising stars and the rank and file was astronomical. In my scenario, the well-sellers may earn more than many other artists, but the differences are more socially acceptable. At the same time, another change is taking place, which is perhaps even more drastic. As a normal market emerges, many artists, designers and related intermediaries will be earning better than ever before. In the past, these people generally had a hard life, hovering around break-even point and often ending up in the red. Now, a substantially greater number will sell quite a bit better. This will allow them to scramble up above break-even point. They might not become well-sellers, but they don’t have to.

In the scenario we have explored here, a significant improvement has already been achieved, because their activities have become profitable. That is a giant step forward for the income of the artist and, at the same time, an enormous improvement for the risk-bearing entrepreneur (who may also be the artist or designer). The business is no longer in a permanent state of insecurity, barely making ends meet. Moreover, as the investment becomes more profitable, it becomes possible to build up capital to finance for further activities. It also becomes easier to take a risk on artists who deserve a chance – who should be published, who should have the opportunity to perform and so forth – but have not yet had the chance.

One surprising aspect of the economic and financial crisis that swept the world in 2008 is that, for the first time in decades, the idea of markets being organized in such a way that the structure does not solely serve the interests of shareholders and investors has entered the debate. A high price has been paid for the idea that they knew what they were doing and would automatically work to serve the common good. The neo-liberal notion that markets regulate themselves should be abandoned; it simply isn’t true. Every market, anywhere in the world, is organized in one way or another that serves certain interests more than others. Once this realization dawns, it will be a weight off our shoulders. We can then start constructively considering how we can organize markets – including cultural markets – to enable them to serve a broader spectrum of interests. There are exciting times ahead, not without their potential pitfalls, but with ample opportunity for these ideas to take hold and flourish.

John Thackara

In 1909, Peter Kropotkin was asked whether it was possible to learn a trade as difficult as gardening from books. “Yes, it is possible,” he replied, “but a necessary condition of success, in work on the land, is communicativeness – continual friendly intercourse with your neighbours.”

Although a book can offer good general advice, Kropotkin explained, every acre of land is unique. Each plot is shaped by the soil, its topography and biodiversity, the wind and water systems of the locality, and so on. “Growing in these unique circumstances can only be learned by local residents over many seasons,” the aristocratic anarchist concluded. “The knowledge which has developed in a given locality, that is necessary for survival, is the result of collective experience.” ¹

The biosphere, our only home, is itself a kind of garden – and we have not looked after it well. On the contrary, we have damaged many of the food and water systems that keep us alive, and wasted vast amounts of non-renewable resources.  TREND: SCARCITY OF RESOURCES One of the main reasons we’ve damaged our own life-support system is that we under-value the kinds of socially created knowledge Kropotkin wrote about. Ongoing attempts to privatize nature, and the over-specialization of knowledge in our universities, continue to render us blind to the consequences of our own actions.

Openness, in short, is more than a commercial and cultural issue. It’s a matter of survival. Systemic challenges such as climate change, or resource depletion – these ‘problems of moral bankruptcy’ – cannot be solved using the same techniques that caused them in the first place. Open research, open governance and open design are preconditions for the continuous, collaborative, social mode of enquiry and action that are needed.

For centuries, the pursuit of knowledge  KNOWLEDGE was undertaken in open and collaborative processes. Science, for example, developed as a result of peer review in an open and connected global community. Software, too, has flourished as a result of social creativity in what Yochai Benckler has named ‘commons-based peer production’. ² These approaches stand in stark contrast to the legacy left by the industrial economy – from cars to power stations – which depends on a command-and-control business model and militant copyright protection. The internet may have made it easier, technically, to share ideas and knowledge – but an immense global army of rights owners and attendant lawyers works tirelessly to protect this closed system of production.

Openness, in short, is more than a commercial and cultural issue. It’s a matter of survival.

The open design experiments you will read about in this book – such as the 60 Fab Labs in operation as we go to press – are nodes within an alternative industrial system that is now emerging. These are the “small, open, local and connected” experiments that environmental designer Ezio Manzini views as defining features of a sustainable economy. ³

Open design is more than just a new way to create products. As a process, and as a culture, open design also changes relationships among the people who make, use and look after things. Unlike proprietary or branded products, open solutions tend to be easy to maintain and  TREND: GLOBALIZATION repair locally. They are the opposite of the short-lived, use-and-discard, two-wash-two-wear model of mainstream consumer products. As you will read in the pages that follow, “nobody with a MakerBot will ever have to buy shower curtain rings again”. ⁴

Another open source manifesto states, “Don’t judge an object for what it is, but imagine what it could become.” This clarion call is welcome – but it does not promise an easy ride for open design. Our world is littered with the unintended outcomes of design actions, and open design is unlikely to be an exception. For example, 90% of the resources taken out of the ground today become waste within three months – and it’s not axiomatic that open design will improve that situation.  RECYCLING On the contrary, it’s logically possible that a network of Fab Labs could produce the open source equivalent of a gas-guzzling SUV. The long-term value of open design will depend on the questions it is asked to address.

An important priority for open source design, therefore, is to develop decision-making processes to identify and prioritize those questions. What, in other words, should open designers design? All our design decisions, from here on, need to take into account our natural, industrial and cultural systems – and the interactions between them – as the context for our creative efforts. We need to consider the sustainability of material and energy flows in all the systems and artefacts we design. In reading the articles and case studies that follow in this book, I am confident that these caveats will be embraced by the smart and fascinating pioneers of open design who are doing such fascinating work. Crowds may be wise – but they still need designers.

GLOBAL BRANDS

PHOTO: RICHARD ALLAWAY

MASS MIGRATION

PHOTO: PHILIPPE LEROYER ➝ WWW.FLICKR.COM/PHOTOS/PHILIPPELEROYER

OUTSOURCING

PHOTO: MARISSA ORTON

DE-GLOCALIZATION

MC DONALD’S INDIA

AFGHAN RUG

PHOTO: GREG SCRATCHLEY ➝ WWW.FLICKR.COM/PHOTOS/SCRATCH/119524328

BLUE MARBLE, 1972

ASTRONAUT PHOTOGRAPH AS17-148-22727, A.K.A. THE BLUE MARBLE PICTURE, TAKEN ON DECEMBER 7, 1972. COURTESY OF NASA JOHNSON SPACE CENTER

EMERGING NEW MARKETS

BUSINESSWEEK COVER DECEMBER 2004 — BLOOMBERG