FROM THE PERSONAL FACTORY TO SELF-PRODUCTION: Revising Design Research and Education for Post-Industrial Societies

Along the crisis of industry, knowledge and the creative labour come to be the primary workforce capable of generating value and innovation. Industry is living an historical shift of its role within society and production through the admittance of the new technologies and the service sector. The process of digitalization is leading to a transformation of the nature of the enterprises, while opening to new forms of micro-factories and “personal capitalism”, in order to share locally and globally skills and knowledge, as well as resources and tools, to the accomplishment of projects and products. The new generations of designers have come to terms with deindustrialization and, while their predecessors had a role in the assembly line with manufacturing processes, today’s designers are aware of their service and strategic role concerning innovation. Then, the young designer is experiencing a special space for self-organization, while incorporating all the productive aspects in his own office and even experimenting with self-branding, thereby revealing a spontaneous and alternative space to the official production. Can we still speak of industrial design, while production seems to assume a completely new shape and organization, while delivering new outcomes? What are the characters of the post-industrial production in order to address design education and the role of the creative practitioner?