Fourteenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices

Abstract

Many products have been designed to aid and support people in their daily activities. Glasses are part of them: they are prosthesis strongly present in the everyday life that have been originally introduced for improving the human vision (and protect eyes) and now mainly turned into fashion accessories. For long time, the most part of the production conceived more akin to fashion accessories and did not fully perform its function due to the rigidity of the models and parts. If eyewear is not adjusted to fit the wearer, its optical traits are no longer correct either. Most people wearing glasses are unaware of this fact. Considering that the biologically admixed population is increasing, such demographic changes may affect the distribution of anthropometric characteristics, which are incorporated into the design of eyewear. Until now producers have proposed the same dimension for the rim, temple length and bridge width for both the female and male wearers and for different race users, but it is very clear now that this product should satisfy the needs and expectations of the plurality of the user‘s profiles. The present study born for investigating and experiment the use of 3D print technologies and the impact they may have on the eyewear industry up to create a platform where the user can become an active designer in making his own custom glasses. The paper suggests an applied reflection on the mass-customization process and introduces part of results performed in the Florence University Laboratory of Eyewear Design (La.Mo).