For a long time, brands have been defined by two key elements: a name and a logo. The uniqueness of the company name and insignia, coupled with the firm’s marketing strategy across traditional and, more recently, online platforms have determined the success of the business in question up until now. However, the so-called “Maker Movement” has been gaining traction in recent times, forcing both brand owners and designers alike to visualize their brands in a three-dimensional manner in order to get them effectively across to potential consumers.
Basically, the Maker Movement is the term of choice used to refer to and document the rise of individuals or small groups of people creating new, innovative, low-cost products using discarded electronic parts and open source knowledge available on the Internet. The proponents of this “do-it-yourself” culture, usually small businesses, have captured the imagination of a greater audience of modern-day consumers than the large companies using standard methods to mass-produce generic goods in China and shipping supplies across the globe.
The Maker Movement has thus led established companies towards pursuing policies of acquisition. An example of this is the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) industry, where large legacy firms are acquiring smaller maker businesses in order to attract millennial customers who prefer healthier and more natural and organic food options made available by those ‘makers’. In addition, big CPGs have conducted surveys and set up online portals asking for innovations in their products that their customers would like to see, all in an effort to remain competitive in the rapidly changing market of today.
Whether the products are borne of an artisanal approach or are simply mass-produced, the maker method is followed to get the desired level of branding. This involves combining the traditional concept of a brand, which is an effective name and logo, with creating and testing a 3D model of the product, a prototype, to see if it works well with the brand.
The multiple facets of creating a popular brand name, such as market research, demographics, consumer demand, nature of competition and selection of appropriate channels to propagate the brand are now expected to leave an impact on the physical characteristics of the product itself in order to form a complete brand. This necessitates model making and testing to see not only if it works as intended, but also if it fits with the image a company wants to establish for itself in the eyes of the public.
Therefore, the Maker Movement has turned brand creation into a more holistic process, combining all aspects of market research with effective design and model making so that all three deliver a consistent image of the company to potential customers. Model making, the major aspect of the do-it-yourself culture, helps manufacturers get a realistic preview before finalizing the product design. This realistic preview is the main purpose of the Maker Movement and one of the primary goals of its developers and founders of the project.
The Maker Movement method is one of the most realistic and up-to-date projects in the creation of a 3d modeling project, and because of that it is very recommended that everyone in the field checks the method out, as it has a lot to teach producers in the field and developers who are starting their first lessons as well. The Maker Movement welcomes all types of approaches.