Think like an Artisan.

Before the industrial revolution, everything out there had a maker. A person, not a brand. The brand was the makers signature. "I made this". Man as Maker. Artist and Artisan.

Automation and technology has turned many of us into Buskers. Humans as Labourers. A servant of others.

It's around two hundred and fifty years since the start of the industrial revolution. That also happens to be the average length of time of a civilisation. We are at the end of an era and Buskers are being replaced by technology. I have two grandchildren in Primary School who accept 3D printing at home as just the way things are, and access product programmes for what they want to make like water from a tap. When it comes to the manufacture of goods at scale, we humans are becoming increasingly redundant.

When it comes to what to make however, it's different. What is to be made has to be imagined and conceptualised first. It is the product of a relationship between humans, materials, and needs whether it is a pie…