Since its inception in 2021, California-based IMAGINERIA has enabled fashion, jewelry, and homeware brands to sell digital designs as physical goods produced on-demand using digital manufacturing technologies with zero inventory. Building a platform for phygital goods, IMAGENERIA started by offering 3D-printable NFTs and developing a blockchain-based solution that allows the designers and brands to authenticate and protect their digitally-manufacturable assets along the way, from the Metaverse digital asset to physical products.
This approach is more than a revolution in art, design, and commerce: it is a major step toward reconciling economic development and environmental resiliency. Some of the world’s most forward-thinking designers have seen the immense potential of Web 3.0 and the phygital exchanges it facilitates.
Lada Legina is one of the designers who use IMAGENERIA. The Los-Angeles based 3D-printed accessory designer began her career as a traditional jewelry designer but soon began to explore the possibilities of 3D printing. She has enjoyed considerable success at the vanguard of design but sees a future in which economic and environmental realities bring far more voices into the on-demand space. “3D printing is a not-too-distant reality,” she notes, “that has the potential to transform the entire fashion industry into one that is not only more flexible, customized, and adaptable—but also more sustainable.”
Mumbai-based Karan Gandhi has earned international acclaim for his minimalist approach to furniture and décor. While digital environments tend to complement his aesthetic, Gandhi firmly believes in the tangible’s power. “As fun as it is to engage with objects only partially through digital mediums,” he observes, “we cannot at least yet engage and immerse ourselves fully. The digital-only experience leaves hollowness to our experience; I believe physical goods fill that void in the age of Web 3.0.” He launched his digital-to-physical brand Hyper.MNML at IMAGENERIA. Now Hyper.MNML offers parametrically designed sculptures which organic, impossible for traditional manufacturing shapes, and can be brought to the real world through the Industry 4.0. technology mix employed by IMAGENERIA.
Some designers represented at IMAGENERIA have taken a more measured approach to the phygital space. Alberto Ghirardello drew on his academic study of industrial design to forge a successful career in furniture design at some of Milan’s most prestigious studios before turning his attention to digital design in 2017. “human beings will always need physical, tangible goods that can satisfy their desire to possess,” he contends, “as well as the desire for novelty: to want something new is a part of our nature.”
That desire for novelty, Ghirardello observes, supports our entire economy. Other designers continue to seek new ways of reconciling the financial realities of the digital and physical spaces. Many designers base themselves in the digital realm, notes Kostika Spaho of Portland’s Ica & Kostika, “because the entry barrier is very low, almost free. Anyone almost anywhere in the world can learn these free programs.” At the same time, bridging the digital and physical marketplaces can be daunting. “[Digital designers] have to figure out ways to make their things physical…. From personal experience, getting from A to B is a nightmare.”
“The tactile connection to a real-world experience is essential to me,” adds Jonathon O’Neill, founder, and director of Australia’s Makuno design studio. “I see web 3.0 as an opportunity to expand an individual’s ability for unique experiences. Still, I hope to use those same digital tools to create new opportunities for new physical interactions and forms, too.” Digital 3D-printable furniture by Makuno is available locally in the United States for on-demand digital production. It is an excellent illustration of how digital-to-real world connection through the ways pioneered by IMAGENERIA could serve the world through localization and elimination of carbon emissions along with replacement of a significant part of the long way to the customer on digital delivery.
Design has never been an entirely rarified art: it always answers both to practical use and the realities of the marketplace. Climate change has added a new factor to the mix, requiring designers to account for the environmental impact of their products and the means by which they market and sell them. “At IMAGENERIA, we build a global talent community, join efforts and resources to make creators commercially successful in a digital economy, and achieve United Nations Sustainable Development Goals together,” Julia Daviy, CEO and Co-Founder, IMAGENERIA, points out.
IMAGINERIA continues to develop economically viable, environmentally responsible ways for today’s designers to meet emerging tastes and needs.
