3D-Printer: Opportunity or Threat for professional designers?

A decade ago, 3D-printer is a machine to rapidly print a product prototype. Recently, it is being turned to be a home machine to print a real product. There are a growing number of the marketplaces for 3D printing services in UK, Europe and USA, i.e. printing and selling 3D printed products, e.g. Shapeways, i.Materialise and Ponoko. This service has not been booming in Asia. The first 3D printing café has been launched in Shibuya district in Tokyo, named FabCafe, since December 2012. The FabCafe services include 3D printers, 3D CAD software, a laser cutting machine and a full body 3D scanner.

                                                                                                                     

3D printing technology is revolutionising product-oriented design. 3D printer can print many products, ranging from a part to the entire product in a variety of industries, such as jewelry, fashion, consumer electronics, medical products, human organs and spacecrafts. For example, in the fashion industry, it can print fashion accessories, shoes, bras, bikinis, dresses, etc. 3D printing materials are not only plastics, but also glass, steel, bronze, gold, titanium and even stem cells. In the next five years, perhaps all materials are likely to be able to be 3D printing materials. There was a news headline in the last weekend that Nasa will carry the first 3D-printer into space. There are possibilities, ranging from ‘building replacement toilet pipes to making entire spacecrafts’. Founded in 2010, Made in Space has been working on making additive manufacturing work at zero gravity. The company is in the process of testing the printer in microgravity aboard a Boeing 727.  

This raises a serious question how are professional designers in the future?  I propose an idea that professional designers need to redefine their value. How young designers will be trained for this changing future. I do not want to see design professional as Kodak film when new technology creates a new player and disrupts the old one. We need to rethink design professional value, what is the role of design professional for economy and society when 3D printing technology can be easily accessed to everyone! Perhaps, it is a transitional period. We will witness the emergence of new design professional, titled 3D printing designers. The industrial designers might be called 'industrial artisans'.