In its 86-year history, the industrial design firm Teague has helped commercialize some groundbreaking technology, from the original Polaroid camera to the cabin of the 1946 Boeing Stratocruiser. They continue their legacy of innovation today with their design work on the first Xbox and the interiors of Boeing's latest superplane, the 787 Dreamliner. And now they've started pushing into the 3D-printing world with the 13:30 headset, a creation they call the first "prototype as product."

The 13:30 isn't the first 3D-printed consumer product — many offerings from toys to hearing aids beat them to market — but this might be the first high-profile consumer product designed specifically for printing that is as easy to download as a song from iTunes.

The headphones are made up of nine 3D-printed parts (downloadable at Thingiverse) and a handful of electronic components: two drivers, a couple of RCA jacks, and some wires and springs. The design was purposefully kept simple and solderless to make it easier to assemble and recycle.

John Mabry, a senior industrial designer at Teague, designed the 13:30 headphones in between working on high-tech products for the likes of HP, Intel, and Microsoft. A model builder and fixed-gear bikes tinkerer in his spare time, the idea of crafting a home-brew high-tech product seemed too good to pass up. He says "Everything was intended to be consumer-sourceable. Most of the electronics can be sourced from Digi-Key. Some of the parts were bought at the local Jo-Ann Fabrics and Home Depot." The team at Teague even found a spring they needed inside a ball point pen.

The headphones consist of nine 3D-printed parts and electrical components that can be sourced by customers.

Maintaining a high level of aesthetic quality was a challenge. He says, "We wanted to make it a printed headset, not a headset that got printed. A lot of the mechanics of traditional headphones had to be rethought — current models are not optimized for 3D printing." For instance, the 13:30 uses straight lines and conical sections to visually accentuate the "grain" left behind by 3D printers. It might not displace Bose, but it looks pretty sweet.

Teague has no plans to sell kits, and Mabry says he wants to keep the project as organic as possible. "We'll host the files on Teague Labs and Thingiverse. I'd really like to see people come at this, print it, and see what they can make better. Maybe there are some acoustic engineers out there that know the secrets of killer headphones." He envisions the relationship being two-sided and said the firm might collaborate with indie designers on refining their designs or perhaps print them out on their pro-grade printers.

Will Thingiverse become the new CES? It's too soon to tell, but Teague is investing heavily in the future of the industrial design profession. Their Teagueduino, an Arduino offshoot that raised $76,697 on Kickstarter, and the 13:30 headset show that this nearly 100-year-old firm has an open ear for emerging technology.

Teague's hands-on product development legacy stretches back decades.

Photos courtesy of Teague Design