#3d prinitng

3D Printing of Medical Devices

Additive manufacturing is an official industry standard term (ASTM F2792) for the process of joining materials to make objects from 3D model data, usually layer upon layer, as opposed to subtractive manufacturing methodologies.

3D printing is a type of additive manufacturing, process that creates a three-dimensional object by building successive layers of raw material. Each new layer is…

Here’s a preview of a sailor Pluto inspired earring design I’m working on using mixed 3d printed materials, brass and red dyed nylon plastic. I’m still working out the kinks, but I think the metal border/backing really classes it up, as opposed to just the plastic. I also like the shiny metal next to the matte red.

Having recently become quite obsessed with what the end of scarcity will do to values and markets, I’ve started viewing the current consumables culture through a lens of being one that exists somewhere between fast fashion and 3D printing. Yes, even the slow luxury and/or artisanal industries will be facing a future where abundance trumps scarcity, and demand is upended. 

As I read about Balenciaga releasing a “fragrance upgrade,” I couldn’t help but wonder how long it will be until I can receive or “print” a molecule to drop into my fragrance in order to update it vs. buying a new one. 

As Luxury Daily reported, “French fashion house Balenciaga has already created a reinterpretation of its latest fragrance, B. Balenciaga after its release in October.As the first scent created by then-newly appointed creative director Alexander Wang, the fragrance garnered sizable attention for both brand and designer. Nearly six months later, the fragrance has already been reinterpreted as B. Balenciaga Skin signaling a trend of over saturation in the perfume sector.”

The late 2000s saw some dire times for perfumeries and fragrance makers. Despite and perhaps due to the proliferation of celebrity scents, the industry is facing dwindling natural resources, and an almost anti-loyalty movement driven by tryvertising and subscription services like Birchbox. 

Smart marketers are editorializing their products, leaning heavily on social media to tell stories and drive desire but can this possibly keep pace? 

The tech industry’s penchant for agile, iterative product cycles, I think has trained consumers to expect everything to always be updating. Having researched their values behaviors for a CPG personal care brand last year, I learned that the so-called Gen Y and Z aren’t in the slightest bit phased when their apps, phones, TVs, cars and treadmills reboot themselves to update to improved experiences. And in fact, the expectation that iterative updates will occur is leaking from the Internet to the Internet of Things, and all over actual things.