Posted by pink_moustache on 2005-06-15 14:15:37
Post Subject:
Frank Gehry is an architect, doing some product/furniture design...perhaps he crafts at home, but that's not his profession.
Phillipe Stark is an industrial designer, specializing in product design and furniture....
I personally would never call my occupation (product design) an art, or a craft. Most of the professional designers, design for mass production, design for a need, or for a desire...their finished product is designed to be sold, the process involves many specialists in other fields (engineering and marketing), they build a couple of prototypes, and then the project is shipped off to be manufactured on a factory somewhere. Artistic expression is often devalued for the sake of profit.
Craft also often creates for a real human need, but it's manufactured very often by the designer, the crafter. That's how I differentiate between craft and design ( and by design I mean product design...not the design as an act of conceptualizing, but design as an occupation.)
A piece of pottery, although an example of utilitarian craft, can be artistic ( sweet proportions, thoughtful color scheme, use of texture) or a sketch of a toaster done by an industrial designer is not only informative and explains the function of a product, but also shows some artistic skills ( good composition, value...etc)
To me fine arts are created mainly to express the artist's thoughts, and aren't functional...of course, there're plenty of creative people whose work borderlines with art, craft, and design ( places like Droog), but the whole point of their work sometimes is the fact that they explore and question the boundaries between craft and art and design... There're also plenty of examples of pretty militant approach to craft and art or design, where people make f'ing sure that nothing mixes up and 100% pure art, or 100% pure, craft free design is the output.
