We’re surrounded by anonymous, mass-produced junk. So it’s no surpris

We’re surrounded by anonymous, mass-produced junk. So it’s no surprise that for years, forward-thinking designers have been trying to give product design an dollop of individuality and soul, whether that’s through customizable designs or high-tech craft. Those designers are the subject of , the very first museum show curated by all-star designer Yves Béhar. The show opens this Saturday at San Francisco’s . But we’ve got a quick preview for you. Béhar is tapping a trend that’s been going for a while now–what he calls “Design in an Age of Indiviudality.” But there are obviously many ways to imbue an inanimate object with a personal, emotional connection. Béhar’s exhibition proposes six: Crowdsourcing, Platforms, Blueprints, Hacks, Incompletes, and Modules. Which sounds complicated, but let’s take a look at some examples. “Modules” just refers to all the attempts by designers to create kits of parts, which users can adjust according to their whims. A good example is pictured up top: Clouds, designed by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for by Kvadrat, is a system of interlocking fabric tiles, which can be joined to form dramatic walls and room dividers, or simply hung as decoration. Hacks are probably the most obvious example, and icons of design, from Ikea to Eames, are perfect targets for hacking. Here, a hack of an iconic Eames side chair, created with baby in mind by Andrew McCandish and friends: And here, a hack by Studio Proxy that conjoins two different pieces of Ikea furniture: “Incompletes” involve objects that have to be finished in some way by the end user–the idea being to engage the user in actually creating the product. Here, a stool by 5.5 Designers which is too uncomfortable to sit on by itself. The user has to complete it by adding her own cushion: A similar idea by Martin Konrad Gloeckle: The Shaded Sconce is just three pegs, which are only complete as a sconce when topped by a book of your choosing: By extension, the “Blueprints” section covers designers who simply provide you a blueprint and ask you to build the entire damn thing yourself.
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