Taking Risks

A hands-on approach to designing allows designers, makers, and artists to experience directly the qualities of the materials and understand how they can be manipulated or transformed; this in turn allows for risk-taking and innovation.

“workmanship of risk” individual production, unpredictable/risky, production by a skilled person(s).

“workmanship of certainty” mass production, predictable, production by a system.

Many designer and artists as they grow will begin to more from on form of workmanship to another, whilst others choose to keep their products hand-made.

Craftmanship and Quality

Quality is perceived to come from craftsmanship and mastery of a craft. Hand-woven textiles demand a high level of skill and one which is highly regarded, perhaps even more so when the designer is also the maker/weaver.

Ptolemy Mann is a designer/artist/maker who not only has mastered weaving, but also demonstrates mastery of colour, placement, and composition. Her precise execution and time-heavy means of construction add value and integrity to her work, marking her out as a sought-after textile designer and colourist.

If you look closely at her work you can see tiny imperfections/flaws in the hand-weaving and hand-dyeing of the yarn, which adds further proof that she did do the pieces herself.

This reverence for craftsmanship cuts across textile disciplines and also into working with other materials including, wood, glass, metals, paper, and ceramics and sets apart the strongest designer/makers.

Design for the narrative:

As well as understand how the products were produced, there is a increasing desire to also know the story behind the creator of the piece. Which is completely contradictory to the mass-production method where the products come from completely anonymous workers, and not knowing anything about them, only the line in which the product came from.

One designer/maker who has succeeded in building stories, both in the way she makes and develops her work and also in the pieces she creates, is Donna Wilson. She builds collections of knitted, printed and woven textile.based products, retaining the craftsmanship she has become known for, while adding to the narrative through the animals and strange creatures that appear in her work.

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Her goal is to build work that people will connect with, whether through the connection with the making or through connections with the fun characters in her work.

“Passionate about creating products that people can connect with, the studio is committed to making things that our customers will treasure. We use UK based manufacturers and suppliers wherever possible, doing out bit to keep craftsmanship alive” -Donna Wilson

Narrative of making can be a very successful marketing technique because the build on the concept of authenticity and originality, and create closer bonds with their consumers.