The Future of Hand-made Design

Today I came across an article on Creative Bloq looking into the the future of handmade design. The piece picks up on the resurgence in the design industry of a more hands-on approach to designing thanks to a love of craft and physical materials experienced by many.

This resurgence comes from what some may consider a rebellion against the mass-produced, machine-made and digitally rendered works that became popular as a result of the modernist movement. Handmade processes and aesthetics are said to have been making a comeback to the design industry for a decade or so thanks to the imperfect, tactile and subjective qualities made by using our hands. 

A reversal to a certain degree of modernism’s sterility – the  tangible, humanistic quality of the hand-crafted sits alongside a new wave of technology that cedes control and ingenuity back in the hands of the individual. Visual styles based on screenprint, letterpress, papercraft, woodblock print, embroidery and hand-drawn lettering are becoming more and more prominent in branding and advertising - once again becoming a mainstream aesthetic.

Stefan Sagmeister, who has been at the forefront of the humanistic approach to design since the 1990's, says of the return hand-made design:

“With the advent of modernism, everything became machine-made, be it in architecture, products or graphics. This made a lot of sense in the 1920s when there was a need to get rid of ornamentation in order to reflect the cultural climate. As this machine-made ‘objective’ direction has now been the status quo for almost 100 years, a more human, handmade, subjective, natural approach is the more effective way to communicate.”

I resonate with this article significantly as my ambitions to develop more personally invested, crafted and exquisite work develops. Though I love the entire design process, I believe it is the finishes supplied to pieces that can either make or break them, in terms of effectiveness and statement. 
There is something about handling the work you produce that is missing, to me, when
creating via digital platforms. I hope the handmade market continues to flourish and
become even more distinct within the industry.