The Validity of Craft in Spanish Design: validation through trends.

Abstract

Since the beginning of industrial design, craft has had an important role within this discipline, taking part in its evolution and, in some cases, being still valid. In the most recent years, trend books and catalogues of design companies highlight this relationship and talk about “neo-artisanal” products or the recovery of craft among the industrial processes.

Historically, Spanish design has lacked identity; however, and in spite of globalisation, the irruption of craft not only in trend books, but also of some reflections proposed by relevant authors point out that there is a special relationship in this area, which has led us to demonstrate its validity and evaluate it as an identity feature of Spanish design. To this end, an analysis of the proposed trends by the country’s most relevant observatory has been carried out and the proposed trends concerning craft have been validated through an analysis of the philosophy and the catalogues of the Spanish leading habitat-design companies.