Design and Craft Come Together - A New Perspective to Synergistic Interactions

The development of mass industrialization slowly and steadily breaks the connection between crafts and design. Step by step, extreme functionalism has come to prevail, which leads to dehumanization of industry, mass production and market consolidation. The result of these tendencies is that the living environment is oversaturated with standard uniform and indistinctive mass products. A consumeristic attitude is encouraged, emphasizing the use of increasing amounts of cheap goods, which quickly become obsolete or discarded simply because new, attractive, but some low-quality articles have arrived. Hence, the consumption circle turns faster, stretching up to formidable proportions. But just as any other tendency, which does not settle for long, consumers and designers got tired of the extreme utilitarianism of industrial production. Design is increasingly taking a new line of limited-edition handmade articles, which demonstrate more freedom, diversity and personalization. This results in creative collaborations between craftsmen, designers and artists, which work together and share experience, techniques and innovations. This study seeks to provoke an active discussion among artistic circles on bringing back crafts into contemporary art and design projects, especially when specific local conditions offer numerous possibilities for successful collaborations. To realize these intentions, we should specify areas where crafts and design overlap and stand apart, in order to define the possibilities for integration of good practices and elimination of the synectic factors. Based on the conclusions drawn, this study will define several starting points for future research.