Art, Design, and Craft: Understanding the Differences and Similarities

Art, Design, and Craft: Three Creative Disciplines, One Common Goal: To Inspire

Introduction

Creative individuals often find it challenging to differentiate between “art,” “design,” and “craft.” These terms are subjective and often overlap in meaning. Having a clear understanding of these terms is important to prevent confusion, make informed career decisions, and enhance the experience for those engaging in them as a hobby or a form of self-expression. In this article, we will delve deeper into the nuances of art, design, and craft to understand their differences and similarities.

Irrespective of the similarities and differences among art, design, and craft, none holds a superior or inferior position compared to the others.

Art- In simple terms art is just a way for people to express themselves creatively, often through paintings, sculptures, music, poetry, and many other forms. Art is a form of communication through creativity and imagination.

Design- It’s a planned and structured plan of making something look good, perform a function, and serve a specific purpose. Design is the process of making an object look beautiful and practical to use at the same time.

Craft- It means creating anything with hands or tools and requires specific skills. Craft is having knowledge, expertise, and experience in building/making something.

You might assume that distinguishing between these terms isn’t important because they are subjective, but in actuality, if you aspire to pursue a creative career or simply wish to explore it as a hobby or a means of self-expression, Understanding their underlying meaning becomes important.

I have often found myself in the depths of self-criticism or professional burnout and understanding the difference has helped me to put boundaries and get hold of myself. When designing I often tend to incline towards art and that causes a lot of burnout. But knowing when to draw that line has helped me a lot. I will write about that topic very soon.

How similar are they?

Art, design, and craft on the surface seem almost identical. All these 3 domains emerge from similar concepts of creativity, aesthetics, and mode of expression. All of them require the person to learn almost identical skills and share the same core fundamentals, like:

• Line
• Space
• Form
• Composition
• Light
• Anatomy
• Colors
• And many more…

They might also share a lot of similarities when it comes to the type of tools used and even cultural and historical context.

Basic difference

Where exactly do they start to diverge? They become different when it comes to their purpose, utility, commercial aspect, intent, process, and a lot of other aspects as well.

Purpose: The primary purpose of art is to express, provoke thoughts, or challenge perception. It can be aesthetically pleasing but that’s not the primary requirement. But design is done to solve problems in people’s lives. It helps communicate an idea to the viewer/user more clearly and efficiently. It focuses a lot on user experience. Craft on the other hand is meant for aesthetical reasons while being functional and extremely useful. It is meant to master a particular and unique skill. Sometimes craft is also done as a mode of self-expression.

Utility: Art does not need to be utilitarian in any way, whereas the primary focus of both design and craft is functionality. Both of them majorly focus on user-friendliness, practicality, and feasibility. Design is also majorly focused and problem-solving through a structured process. Though craft is often used for decoration most of the time it’s meant to be functional. It also has great importance when we talk about culture and history.

Intent: Art focuses more on the artist’s views and thoughts and their perception. Design and craft are more user-centric. Art is purely a mode of self-expression whereas design and craft follow a more goal-centric approach. Most of the principles and techniques used in design and craft have been made by keeping its users in mind. How will the users use the object, and what kind of experience they will have.

Commercial Dimension: Design predominantly possesses a commercial aspect, as it plays a crucial role in crafting everyday objects, ranging from houses and automobiles to fashion and advertising — essentially, nearly everything in our surroundings involves a designer’s touch. In contrast, art and craft, especially in current times, have somewhat lost their commercial aspects. While art can indeed command high prices, the number of individuals purchasing art and the artists who successfully sell their work remains relatively limited. Similarly, the craft may have lost the direct commercial aspect, but when combined with either design or art, it can produce remarkable results.

Art

I believe it’s the artist’s choice what they want to show in their art. Nietzsche described art as the highest form of self-expression. For some artists, art is an escape and fantasy or the dream they had but couldn’t live. And through their art, they try to live that. Whereas for some artists reality in their art is their understanding of the world, and society depending on their experiences.

Art represents a sense of self. What the artist feels, thinks, and how they perceive the world, or how they want it to be. Some artist on the contrary are very realistic in their artworks. Different artists choose different kinds of aesthetics. Though a lot of people think that the main purpose of art is aesthetics, which is not true. Art is actually a mode of communication. Everyone has different ways of expression and art is one of them.

Some of my favorite artists:

There are so many to choose from but here are a few to explain the context.

• Francisco Goya
• Frida Kahlo
• Claude Monet
• Ludwig van Beethoven
• Frédéric Chopin
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Design

Design plays an important role in our life. Everything we see, we use is specially designed the way they are. But exactly for this reason design demands practicality and feasibility. Designers make designs while keeping users in mind instead of themselves. They can — some even do — express feelings or incorporate emotions, story, and meaning in their design but that’s not the requirement. Design’s inclination towards practicality introduces the concept of UX.

Design is rational. A big part of the design process is finding and accessing problem statements and then finding solutions for those. So the goal is to come up with different strategies and find alternative, optimized, and practical solutions for the users.

Some of my favorite designers:

• Paul Rand
• Paula Schers
• Antoni Gaudi
• Ralph Lauren

Craft

Craft comes from a Greek word — Technê, which translates to craftsmanship. Meaning it is a technique of creating something through different means mostly hands and some set tools. It involves practice and polishing one’s skills to make a better and perfect product. Craft is the combination of discipline, dedication, inspiration, and practice. Craftsmen follow a set process that has been decided after a lot of tests and trials. This is the reason why there is quite some similarity in work done by the craftsmen from the same region, but obviously with exceptions.

For instance, woodworking, textiles, pottery, origami, quilting, ceramics, and shoe making are considered crafts. Sword making, or ceramics and tile making are some of the common crafts in practice.

Some of my favorite craftsmen:

• Calligraphers from Pakistan
• Pottery from Rajasthan (India)
• Murano Glas from Italy
• Shoes from Italy

Conclusion

Art, design, and craft are all important and valuable expressions of human creativity.

Each discipline has its own unique focus and goals, but they can all be used to create beautiful, functional, and meaningful objects and experiences.

The most important thing here is to understand the different aspects of the three disciplines and value and appreciate all of them. It’s very crucial to recognize what goes into creating either art design or craft. Eg: Sculptures by Michelangelo are considered art but also he was a great craftsman. On the other hand, Black paintings by Goya were never meant to be shown and hence made inside his house. Those paintings were just made for self-expression.

I do consider myself inclined more towards art but I still try to experience design and craft. Because the best way to actually understand the subjects and the people who practice them is to experience it yourself. That is when you actually start valuing what you might not otherwise. Wish you an eventful and exciting journey on whatever path you may choose from the three, or maybe multiple as there are no set rules. The truth is a person should experience all three at some point in their life.