Following on from Shapeways, which was spun out of a Philips research project, another Eindhoven-based company offering consumers the opportunity to design and manufacture their own products is studio:ludens. Started by Wouter Walmink and Alexander Rulkens, studio:ludens’ aim is to give people “the tools to create by using our skills as designers and our knowledge about the production process.” Like Shapeways, and ZapFab and FluidForms before them, studio:ludens have developed a set of interface tools which guide consumers through the creation of a product. Where studio:ludens shines though is in the quality of those tools, which without doubt are the most elegant and polished of all those I’ve seen so far.

Currently two design tools are available, the first, epa:kato, creates individualised drinks coasters, whereas lux:creator (still currently in development) allows consumers to design their own lamps. Both tools are Flash based which means clicking the browser’s back button will take you out of the tool, losing any designs that haven’t been saved. Causing the tool to automatically open in a new window would be an easy way to solve this.

The start point of epa:kato, the coaster design tool © studio:ludens

On starting the coaster design tool the user is presented with a square with a number of control points. This seems relatively familiar to anyone who’s used Illustrator or something similar, although they work in a slightly different way. As the points are dragged the shape deforms, but symmetrically, depending on which of the tiling patterns have been selected. This means that although you are controlling where the points are dragged, the overall shapes that are created are never entirely predictable. Clicking and dragging on the handle between the main control points introduces a new control point, by which means the complexity of the shape can quickly be increased, while double-clicking a control point deletes it.

As control points are moved the shape updates according to the symmetry of the chosen style © studio:ludens

What also increases the unpredictability of the design is the fact that the coasters are intended to tessellate. Whether this is an intentional design feature, or has been driven by the need to reduce waste when the coasters are manufactured, the result is a tool where you have the impression of influencing the design rather than dictating it. Once I got over the need to carefully control the design, I found myself designing in a much more playful manner, pulling points around just to see what happened. The downside though, is that without an ‘undo’ button it’s easy to make a change to the shape and then not be able to get back to a previous state.

Crossing lines highlighted in red © studio:ludens

The instructions for epa:kato explain that thin sections of material and lines which cross (producing ‘orphan’ objects) aren’t permissible. The tool has a nice way of showing where lines cross: a glowing red circle which highlights the offending area. However there doesn’t seem to be any indication of how thin a section can be, and of course even if a section is manufacturable, it may break easily in use. Designs which are submitted for purchase are checked before they are produced, but an indication of too-thin sections would be a good addition to the tool.

Snakes in a Plane, a design in the epa:kato gallery © studio:ludens

Registering at the site allows users to upload designs to a gallery, and is necessary before purchasing a design. It’s also possible to choose another user’s design and either modify it or buy it unaltered. Since launching the epa:kato service studio:ludens have added a feature which allows customers to add laser engraved text in a number of different fonts, further increasing the possibilities for customisation.

Modified Snakes in a Plane, with text added © studio:ludens

lux:sculptor, the second design tool offered by studio:ludens, takes the notion of unpredictable design to another level. On first entering the tool you’re presented with a wireframe representation of what looks like a table lamp. There are two ways to influence the design of the lamp, the first of which is to create ‘waves’ through the wireframe.

The start point of lux:sculptor, the lamp design tool © studio:ludens

There are five wave types to choose from, whose size can be changed using the editing tools. Waves are created using the computer keyboard, the top row of letters (Q, W, E… up to P) make make clockwise rotating waves of increasing frequency, the middle row of letters creates stationary waves, and the bottom row of letters creates anti-clockwise rotating waves. What really adds to the unpredictability is that keys can be pressed simultaneously, which will overlay one set of waves on top of another. As you remove your fingers from keys the waves die away, and designs are ‘frozen’ by pressing the space bar.

Waves percolating through the wireframe © studio:ludens

There is something quite compelling about creating the waves and watching the effect they have on the animated wireframe lamp. However as a design tool I found this even more difficult to like than epa:kato. For one thing it’s very difficult to combine the different wave shapes, you need to be pressing keys with one hand whilst also clicking a wave shape icon with the mouse. What’s more, I kept noticing forms that I liked, but the nature of the tool is such that the ‘design’ is already fading away even as you notice it.

The lamp’s profile is changed by dragging control points on the highlighted curve © studio:ludens

The next stage is to shape the profile of the lamp. This is very similar to the idea first implemented by FluidForms, whereby control points on a profile can be dragged to change the overall shape. Personally I found the order of the process (wave forms, then shape) a little illogical, given that the shape of the lamp is a ‘macro’ consideration, and the shape of the waves is a ‘micro’ one, though I’m not sure that this would bother everyone.

lux:sculptor is still in development and so not all features are working fully. As with epa:kato there is a gallery of designs submitted by other users, but currently these can’t be loaded into the design tool and modified. It’s also not completely clear how the lamps will be manufactured; at first I had assumed some kind of additive process such as SLS or SLA, but later it occurred to me that the lamp could be built up from a series of laser cut pieces, which would explain the wireframe style of the design tool.

Whether studio:ludens can build a successful business from this type of consumer design remains to be seen. I can’t stress enough how impressed I was by the quality of the tools – they’re fast, easy to understand and look good –  and I enjoyed interacting with them to create objects. But I can’t help wondering whether consumers will be frustrated by not being able to control the fine detail of their designs. Somehow epa:kato and lux:sculptor feel like experiments in the process of design, which isn’t a bad thing at all, but might not be what consumers are looking for. If that’s your kind of thing though, take a look at this post on the studio:ludens blog: an experiment to create a 3D form based on the ’shape’ of a persons voice.