Janne Kyttänen.
The Finnish design company Freedom of Creation is celebrating its 10th year in business. Freedom of Creation has reinvented the 3D printing technology business, stepping away from the idea that the technology is only used to support the design stage. FOC’s final product is the valuable design models it creates.
Design is going through the same process as music, photography, printed media and books – soon everything will be digital. In the world of design, it means that there’s no point to have a bunch of items in storage waiting for the next trends when all you have to do is make a 3D file and produce an item with the right demand at the right moment. This is how JANNE KYTTÄNEN, the founder and leader of Freedom of Creation, sees it. This statement seems to have a solid base, as FOC founded in 2000, has believed in its future message since the beginning.
“I think our biggest business opportunity is that we don’t sell products at all, only 3D files,” Kyttänen says.
Palm. FOC.
FOC is a pioneer in the use of 3D printing technology in the design industry. Kyttänen and his team create computer models that can then go into production anywhere in the world. FOC’s 3D design has produced lamps, furniture, interior decoration solutions, iPhone cases and pretty much everything else we see have seen in 3D. However, Kyttänen doesn’t see himself as a product designer.
“Making products is extremely easy and I don’t see it as a challenge. I try to look at the bigger picture and create an infrastructure instead of a product. It all started during my studies, when I started to pay attention to Chinese plastic products and thought that it wasn’t working. Too much of everything is produced, forced to the markets and eventually into the seas. We wanted to create a green way of making products,” Kyttänen explains.
FOC rejects mass production that sells products to unidentified buyers, whilst hoping to come up with a good enough trick to empty the storage. FOC’s system also minimizes the logistics, investments, need for workforce and the harm to the environment.
A new industry was printed
In simple terms, a clear advantage of 3D printing technology is the ability to make a prototype at the office instead of the factory. During the past few years, the cost of 3D printers has gone down, which means they are now also available to small and middle-sized companies. The modern printers can process different materials simultaneously. The technology is typically used in the production of jewelry, footwear, architecture, as well as in the automotive, aviation, and health care industries. FOC’s foundation is solidly based on the technology, not so much on the design process.
“I have always been more interested in the broader outline of design,” Kyttänen says.
Unlike many others, FOC doesn’t use 3D computer modeling as an intermediate stage in the design and production chain, but rather it sees the model design as a valuable product. FOC produces all its products using 3D printing technology. In the first stage a CAD file is made with a 3D software such as Studio Max, Maya, Solidworks or Cinema 4D. The file is uploaded to a 3D printer and the final product is “printed” three-dimensionally, thin layer by thin layer inside the printer that resembles a box-like piece of hospital equipment. A whole range of different materials can be used for printing such as plastics, metals, rubbers and ceramic materials.
Custom-made headphones. FOC.
FOC states on its website that they believe in a future where people will have 3D printers in their homes. FOC believes ordinary citizens will have the ability to just download files for products they want from the Internet and produce them by themselves.
“I have been doing 3D design since I was 15 and I have considered how it could create a whole new industry,” Kyttänen says.
Printing your own coffee table three-dimensionally from your own living room printer could be as easy as that. Although his own ideas are elsewhere, Kyttänen says that he greatly respects the old days of Finnish design, when the industry was quite different.
”I think highly of EERO AARNIO and his entire generation. It was a whole different world in the 60’s. Shit, if I was in their shoes! Back then you just packed your family, products and a tent in your car and went on a sales trip…there were no fax machines and people didn’t know foreign languages, it took quite an attitude to do that,” Kyttänen says.
“I just sit my butt on the couch and send 3D models all over the world, the next day I get the stuff through DHL,” Kyttänen says as he continues our conversation using Skype from his couch in Amsterdam.
Copying accusations belong in the past
Freedom of Creation emphasizes that it is both a design and a research unit. FOC make file concepts for both their own products as well as for various customers undertaking research and development projects. FOC’s reference list is extensive, including the likes of LVMH, Nokia and Heineken. All of them have ordered a unique, brand specific concept. Uniqueness is still a strange concept to Kyttänen.
FOC.
“If design becomes more democratic, then what’s the point in copying anything? If a unique design can be copied in China the next day, then was it really unique? Accusations of copying are an issue from the 60’s,” he says.
In his opinion, cheaply produced design copies shouldn’t be a real threat to anyone. The sound and picture industries have looked for new ways to keep their products unique. *Let others copy. If you don’t have new ideas you shouldn’t play the game. I have a lot of ideas, but I’m sure I’m not the only one. There are ideas in the air, some people do something with them and some don’t,” Kyttänen says.
Only the latest matters
Kyttänen learned an important lesson when he was a young athlete – only the latest result matters. As a professional squash player he learned to be self-disciplined and independent. It was sports that lead him to Amsterdam in the first place. Kyttänen’s studies at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy didn’t come until later. In the end the country didn’t matter, it just happened to be Holland.
Kyttänen’s team of ten people slowly developed around him and now after just 10 years, Freedom of Creation that began during his studies has expanded to become the leader of a new industry. FOC’s exhibition at the Cable Factory will not only be a 10-year retrospective of the company, but also a look back at the entire 3D technology through the years.
So, what will the exhibition show? Apparently, the making of the exhibition has followed the same trend as all their other work – models don’t have to be ready until just before the final printing. How the exhibition will be presented was still a big mystery to Kyttänen when I spoke to him earlier in the summer.
“We want to show the complexities of our designs and putting an exhibition together. We want to show the audience that things take time even if it looks easy.”
At least Kyttänen promises to have actual prototypes and the latest products on show – not just files.
Freedom of Creation’s 10-year anniversary exhibition at the Cable Factory, Helsinki, 1-4 September 2010. www.freedomofcreation.com
Text Simo Vassinen Photos FOC
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Helsinki Design Week on 26 August–5 September 2010. See the complete schedule at www.helsinkidesignweek.com.
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