Design through making: crafts knowledge as facilitator to collaborative new product development

Collaboration between manufacturers and craft makers is believed by many crafts theorists to offer new originality, insight and specialist expertise to design for production. In practice, however, there exists a discrepancy between this ideal and a reality of unreconcilable cultural and methodological differences. This paper documents and discusses such a collaboration as an example of best practice with implications for managers, educators, designers and craft makers. It identifies a new role for craft makers with the appropriate knowledge and experience to act as bridges within companies, facilitating the adoption of design methodologies appropriate to changing priorities in the manufacturing industries.