Why brands need to recognize Maker culture

Writing for the UK-based Guardian, Dan Northover says DIY Maker culture is beginning to have a significant impact on today’s consumers.

“Mike Senese, executive editor of Make Magazine, believes our culture is transforming from a top-down consumer culture to a more one-to-one DIY culture focused on Making,” Northover explains.

RepRapPro’s Ormerod 3D printer. Powered by Atmel’s ARM-based SAM3X8E (Cortex-M3).

“[Clearly], access to social media, 3D printers, affordable sensors and circuitry are changing the way millennials view brands. Top-down control simply doesn’t work for those belonging to the so-called Generation Y, instead they expect to immediately influence brands and modify products to suit themselves.”

Richard Goldsmith, director of social media at Mark Anthony Brands, confirms the DIY trend will prompt more brands to offer customizable open source design files for their customers to modify.

“There are plenty of them out there already. MakieLab founder Alice Taylor started with a simple idea to let people make their own dolls using 3D printing. This has since extended into laser-cut dolls clothes and MakieLab games,” says Northover.

“Last year Campbell’s Soup ran the Hack the Kitchen competition for mobile app creators, while Starbucks is tapping into the maker community’s creativity with Mystarbucksidea.com and Nokia has released the design files for its phone cases so people can customize them and make their own.”

As Northover notes, there is clearly a significant industry shift towards the DIY Maker culture.

“[True], nobody really knows where that’s going to take us. [However], what we do know is that teens of today will grow up with Maker culture as second nature, and soon we’ll all need to realize that the idea of making isn’t reserved just for handcrafted bikes or artisan pickles,” he adds.

Geppetto-style toymaking with Atmel and Arduino

The London-based MakieLab wants to take its customers back to a time when real toy making was a creative, hands-on “Geppetto” experience.

Indeed, the MakieLab platform allows DIY Makers to design a doll from scratch, which is ultimately uploaded and 3D printed at MakieLab headquarters. Subsequently, they are painted, with eyelashes and other features carefully affixed by hand.

“Avatars are very popular, but virtual goods have been phenomenal – we wanted to see if virtual could turn to real. We also wanted to help, introduce the magic of 3D printing to games and toys,” MakieLab founder Alice Taylor told Wired’s Liat Clark on the sidelines of Maker Faire Rome 2013.

“[So] we put out a working demo immediately, you would never normally do that. Dolls usually take four years from concept to shelf, between testing, building and feedback. We tried it the software way. We put it live and iterated with feedback.”

According to Taylor, MakieLab soon found that Makers wanted even more mods made, so they put clothing design online for people to hack, while also fitting the Atmel-powered (ATmega168V/ATmega328V) LilyPad Arduino inside the dolls’ heads.

“One lady called Cat wanted [‘smart’] ears,” said Taylor. “Whenever she walks into a room and claps her hand, the doll’s ears move toward the sound.”

Taylor confirmed that MakieLab would continue to offer additional personalization, which will be supplemented by an upcoming game in which children can build stories around their characters.

“One day, kids may create it all, right down to drawing fabric we can print with laser printers,” she added. “When we show kids how it’s done, you can see their eyes changing in front of you. They’ll grow up believing they can build things in ways we can’t imagine.”