Hard Copies: New Open Designs by Ronen Kadushin

An exhibition at Appel Design Gallery, Berlin 1-22 Nov. 2008 -- and an invitation to download all design and place it on your local CNC machine.

Now we have Ponoko, eMachineshop, JuJups, Shapedays, etc to produce what ever come to our mind in an easy way. But still, at least I don't have every day a nice idea for a great coffee table in my mind.

This is where Ronen Kadushin comes in. I wrote about this Berlin-based designer before. Ronen's idea is to publish all his designs under a CC Creative Commons license( by-nc-sa). So whenever you have access to a CNC cutting facility, you can get his designs:

As Ronen describes: 

"Open Design products flow with an essential cultural wave: towards freer information, Web-based collaborations and open-source methods. In Open Design anyone can download and produce my designs for free. Open Designs encourage modification, redistribution, and direct contact with the designer. I would only ask producers to share with me revenues from commercial uses. This means that with no tooling investment, you can produce Open Design products independently."

All object rely on a very clever 2D digital start point, which makes them easy to alter into new shapes and uses, and they are flat packed. “Hard copies” of the designs can be ordered from any CNC cutting facility that’s local to you, your consumers, or distributors. Ronen's idea is that designs that typically live only a few years in the marketplace can live on and develop.

Still, at the same time, Ronen needs to earn some money. Generating fame and buzz and getting his name out is one of the intentions of the Open Design project. But he also produces some of his collections in high quality and exhibits (and sells) them in an annual exhibition at a Gallery in Berlin.

He says about his new exhibition: 

"This Open Design collection of lighting and furniture limited editions is playing a double role. As gallery pieces, they express my personal style: simple, effortless and humorous. But they also relate to wider cultural issues and offer a designer an alternative course to consumer products, especially relevant in economically troubled times.

There is a feeling about Open Design I would like to convey. Making products this way is, for me, mind clearing and fun. You can feel as good about the Open Design production process, its low environmental footprint, and what it stands for, as you do about the objects themselves."

Context information:
- Freely download the Open Designs and more from www.ronen-kadushin.com
- Order them at Appel Design Gallery, Berlin, www.appel-design.com

Exhibition at:
Appel Design Gallery
Torstr. 114, 10119 Berlin, Germany
phone: +49 (0)30 32 51 81 60
[email protected]