Abstract

Current digital design tools rapid prototyping techniques are today still misunderstood due to their poor accessibility and ease of use that limit their diffusion. However, additive manufacturing technology can produce a positive impact both in design and in production processes. Compared to the traditional productions, it produces a renewal of the design activity and, as such, it needs to be more explored. 3D Printing raises a new vision of mass production, which is in contrast to what the Industrial Revolution proposed years ago; it indeed separates the mass-produced items from production machineries, moving directly to a new idea of ‘customization’. Since today the production capacity is no longer based only on the replicability of the single product, this work explores the role of 3D Printing for customizable jewelry products for mass production. It emphasizes the design role by bringing back the idea of production toward a sense of contemporary craftsmanship in which every good expresses an own beauty by imperceptible uniqueness. The essence of this new vision based on designable uniqueness has to be found beyond to the idea of mass production. Current experiments on materials’ expressivity and generative design, contribute to define a new approach based on the idea of ‘customizable mass customization’.