The Art of Craft
July 31, 2024
What is craft? Is it a noun or a verb? How does it fit in with art and design? I've been thinking about it a lot, and here's what I found.
Miriam Webster defines craft as to make or produce with care, skill or ingenuity.
Britannica makes the important distinction that crafting by definition is an activity that involves making something in a skillful way by using your hands.
In 2018, American Craft magazine published an article by Joyce Lovelace titled Craft Seriously. What does the word mean?
Joyce reached out to designers, thinkers and leaders from different fields and found a few key themes that emerged;
Craft is universal.
Craft is a discipline.
Craft is action.
Craft is heritage.
Craft is all around us.
Craft is complicated, and Craft is profound.
A line that stuck out to me is craft is an earned skill in the service of creativity.
A way of doing things exceptionally well through study, practice, and dedication. It makes me think of my art practice and the time I've dedicated to getting better at every step of the process.
When I'm not designing at a small studio, I create fiber art and textiles under the name Fun Aunt. Tufting is a medium I picked up in 2020 during the COVID pandemic. The process is so intensely physical that it feels like the complete opposite of my day job as a digital designer for a while.
I felt that Tufting was the only way for me to really practice my craft. But if we think about the pillars of study, practice and dedication. Craft, most definitely applies to my design work. I studied graphic design in school. I work at it every day and I've dedicated my career to it.
The first time I ever heard someone reference digital craft was when I joined a small studio. But what does that even entail?
You've heard the phrase pixel perfect things like naming and organizing your layers and groups, utilizing grids in your designs, building design systems that think through different use cases, and thinking about higher designs will be applied across different sizes and scales. These are details that can make all the difference in your digital craft. Thinking through higher design will be applied to different sizes, how it'll print, how it works in black and white as well as color.
For me craft is synonymous with care, to create something with your hands, whether it's with yarn or a computer mouse means putting a little bit of yourself into it.
