One could risk a statement that a person’s attitude towards an item is stronger when it was made personally. Making an object by hand not only commences the item’s (original) biography, but also activates the contemplative level of its perception. Similar attitude characterises a designer in relations to their work – quite often they become attached to their designs. What if the designed item is meant to be tempered with by another person?
The article presents design challenges as an inseparable element of working on open design products, and describes the lessons in humility resulting from the research-and-design process, assuming the use of open source items and libraries.
This subject matter is supported by a case study of two original works: a family of items Accessible Design made with the assumption of open source files for individual execution, and the Emotional Clothing project with its design-and-research conducted ia. by means of open source libraries and products. The article describes the advantages as well as risks of the open source publication of designs. It presents the subject matter of maker culture and the specificity of working on open design projects.
Keywords: open design, open source, maker culture, coding libraries, materials libraries
