Open design.

Open design

Open design is a collaborative approach in which designs and design information are shared so that other people can access and use them. AQA specifically requires you to understand open design in relation to products developed for the common good of society and to be able to give examples of it in practice.

Why open design is used

Open design encourages collaboration and sharing rather than relying entirely on conventional intellectual-property protection for financial reward. Many projects are internet based, allowing design information to be distributed quickly to people in different locations.

Digital manufacture has made this particularly significant. Files for processes such as 3D printing can be shared online, allowing a product or component to be manufactured in different places from the same digital information.

Open design does not automatically mean that a creator has abandoned all rights. Licences such as Creative Commons can specify how a work may be shared, used or adapted.

Examples

Practical Action is used in the notes as an example of design for social benefit. It promotes freely accessible designs for projects such as water pumping and purification systems and other technologies intended to improve people’s lives.

Fairphone demonstrates ideas connected with open-source development, modular construction, upgrading and repair. Its approach challenges short product replacement cycles by making maintenance and component replacement easier.

The notes also identify the standardisation of shipping containers as an example of intellectual-property decisions helping wider adoption: container patents were made available to support international standardisation and worldwide freight.

Advantages and considerations

Open design can:

• encourage collaboration and rapid development
• make useful products and information accessible to more people
• support humanitarian and socially beneficial projects
• allow digital designs to be shared for local manufacture
• make customisation, maintenance and replacement parts easier.

However, designers also need to consider ownership, licensing, quality control and whether shared designs have been properly tested before manufacture or use.