Crafts and Design Thinking

Do crafts have any importance in today’s world of instant gratification and Insta reels of 15 seconds?

The short answer is, YES!

Crafts are a product of human impulses. Crafts require skills. Acquired by mastering, refining and applying centuries-old knowledge with technology on raw materials to create pieces of art. They are witness to stories of evolution, the rise and fall of cultures, and economies. Even today.

In a way they can be considered a communication medium that spans the length of time. Relegating them to modern day irrelevance is a fallacy !

The process of craft creation is an interesting one even today . One can debate if the craftsmen and artists have inner conflicts on perfection and harbour a desire to break from the past. The preponderant feeling one gets is that craftsmen can get stuck in a time warp and just create by holding up the perfection of the past as the north star of the future. The desire for change gets trapped in a veneration of the past and the risk averseness to fix something that’s not broken ! The question is – does this stymie progress and evolution of the craft or constitute true preservation of heritage? 

The answer, like all good answers, lies somewhere in the middle ! While preservation is undeniably desirable , crafts should also respond to the march of time. We at BEADS firmly believe in this maxim.

Can we then harness the power of modern day structured design thinking to the age old traditions of crafts?

Crafts are all about the “how”. How to create the work , how to repeat a process to its perfect end state, and how to imbue it with the magic associated with centuries old techniques. Design focuses on the “idea”. The idea is to build efficiency, performance, aesthetics, material usage, product modularity and sustainability in the process of creation so that the final product speaks to user needs.

Engaging the creation mode of a craftsman with an end goal thus brings thinking and feeling together. Design thinking blended with the crafts emerges as a winning concept with a longer lifetime. It fosters a sense of awareness in the craftsmen. The design thinking approach encourages freedom of thought. Craftsmen step outside the comfort zone of general creation to explore sensory engagements and newer concepts.

Creating a craft today is no longer just about the traditional tools and materials used, rather it’s a mix of specific and experimental skills. The specific allows us to create well-crafted products and the willingness to experiment helps to innovate. Together they fire a craftsman’s imagination into unknown worlds of creativity and as a result give birth to the contemporary craft product.

At BEADS, we believe that this intertwining of disciplines results in both conservation and progress. We intend to introduce traditional craft based lifestyle products developed with a design thinking approach. Bring Odisha’s creative spirit to your space with a touch of contemporaneity. Be the trendsetter in your circle and buy a limited edition BEADS product today! 

You might also like to read about The Belgadia Palace X BEADS Residency Programme and One Wall, both are research-based art residency programs as we invite artists to unveil the initial results of their creative journeys at our studio, fostering an atmosphere of artistic exploration and intellectual exchange.