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Meet the makers: Daniel Chamberlin of 12 AM Design

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We discovered 12 AM Design through our love of coffee (and 3D printing, of course): the hidden heart espresso cup is basically one of the most perfect things we could imagine. So for the latest installment in our Meet the Makers series, we grabbed designer Daniel Chamberlin to get his take on 3D printing...
 
What attracted you to 3D printing and model-making? Do you have a technical background at all?
 
My background is rather eclectic but has always revolved around design. I have a traditional art as well as a technical history and have trained to improve my conceptual understanding of design and also my ability as a technician and craftsman. Creative training starts with craft, material, and tools, but ends with personal journey and ultimately, differentiation. I like Johannes Itten's analogy that artistic education is like a bus that speeds you to the end of a highway, where, the paved road coming to an end, you must walk your own path into the wilderness.
 
What software do you use to design your projects? How did you learn to use it?
 
I think like most designers I use a large variety of software. A software package is like a big, expensive pencil. It's just a tool, and the concepts and ideas behind most do not change (remembering all of the hotkeys is a pain though). I use Softimage XSI when I'm working freely - an old and deprecated package that I have a lot of sentimental love towards, Blender or Rhino when I'm interested in real-world units, Pixologic's excellent Zbrush and little brother Sculptris for free-form sculpting, and packages like TopMod and Wings3D (both open source!) for geometrical manifold mesh modeling. I stay away from Maya when modeling - its strengths lie elsewhere.
 
Who are your favourite designers and makers? What inspires you to create your designs?
 
Milton Glaser. Eva Zeisel. Genichiro Inokuma. Antoni Gaudi. Tokuhiko Kise. Most of Norway. Love what FOC (Freedom Of Creation, we'll forgive the acronym) has been doing. Awesome things, nature, music, giddiness over new technologies (I'm the first to admit it, I'm a keep-it-to-myself-or-I'll-geek-out type).
 
Why did you choose to get involved with 3D printing, rather than other kinds of making or designing? Are there things that you can do with 3D printers you otherwise couldn't?
 
This is an interesting question particularly because there is the assumption that you have to choose one tool or technology over another. 3D printing is a very brightly colored pencil. I have other colors that I like to pick up and use also. As to why I got into it, well, it's cost. The cost has been prohibitive forever. I've wanted to play with a 3D printer since college, when I saw Disney using them for their character busts. At the time, they were about the only company outside of the rapid proto industry that could afford them. We're talking hundreds of thousands for a machine. Making one on your kitchen counter for a few hundred? Yeah that has gotten me excited.
 
There is a misnomer that 3D printers enable us to create what we couldn't create before - artists and craftsman have been boggling our minds for thousands of years with their skill, intricacy, and vision. 3D printing doesn't change a thing about that: having a new tool does not inherently make you a designer any more than an expensive paintbrush makes you a Renaissance Master. What it does do is make repetition of design possible, which means productization, and the speed of production is greatly increased, and the cost is much lower.
 
That means that, skipping over the difficult topic of IP protection and patents, someone with an idea can test market without investing tons of upfront capital. The speed of production with 3D printing also makes it possible to test an idea and iterate, cutting down on paper planning and making the design process more visceral.
 
3D printing seems to be becoming increasingly widespread and accessible to more and more people - do you think we'll see more people getting involved as time goes on? Do you see it becoming a mainstream technology in the near future?
 
Compared to where it was in the 80s, it's already a mainstream technology. There is a lot more technical knowledge required in order to get satisfactory (and in some cases, safe) results, but you see 3 year olds using smartphones with more intuition than their parents, so I imagine a solid training in conceptual 3D space will enable younger audiences to grow into it with relative ease. Right now printers are landing in libraries and schools - the perfect starting point - and then eventually yes the market will grow, although I don't want to be involved in the IT nightmare of servicing home 3D printers (think how bad it is with 2D printers!).
 
What's the best thing about 3D printing, from your perspective?
 
Maker culture. Speed. Cost. Iteration.
 
What advice would you give to someone who wanted to get started with 3D printing, and didn't know where to start?
 
Start playing around with TinkerCAD. If you don't like that, start playing around with clay, foam, or cardboard. Or Legos. You don't need to be a software expert, better to remember that product designers are materials experts. Familiarize yourself - these are all real things: stone, plastic, wood, metal, ceramic, etc. Draw things on paper. Look at inspiring stuff. Copy nature. Think about math and geometry. If that interests you, then time to start training yourself in some software. Start off with free stuff - Wings3D for box modeling, Sculptris for free-form fun, TodMod to start playing with and understanding manifold geometry. If you want to invest in it a bit and you're ready for more in a package, go buy Silo 3D, it's only like $100.
 

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