The obsession over craft

Issue 218: Addressing the unavoidable topic (and why it matters)

In conversations about software design (brand, product, content, etc.), the word you constantly hear now is craft.  

Recruiters will post they are looking for a designer with a high bar for craft. I empathize with those who feel frustrated about the discourse of a high bar for craft as they often are told it is important with no clear definition of the expectations.

Craft refers to a skill or ability to create something by hand, often involving high precision, artistry, and expertise in using particular tools or materials. Craft emphasizes quality, technique, and a deep understanding of the materials, often with a focus on creating unique or custom items rather than mass-produced goods. In a broader sense, "craft" can also refer to the meticulous process of honing a skill or art form, regardless of whether it's physical (like woodworking, pottery, or metalworking) or intellectual (like writing or product design).

People get annoyed about hearing about craft as they know being a good designer requires other skills to succeed: strong communication skills, a growth mindset, and ability to collaborate. However, I must share the hard truth.

Craft is an unavoidable foundation as a designer.

Not having strong craft foundations as a team member is like a basketball player who understands different plays, communicates well, and is a great teammate, but cannot shoot, pass, or dribble. Let's look at the three areas that craft elevates: culture, artifacts, and trust.

Craft represents culture

Alastair Simpson, VP of Design at Dropbox, recently spoke at Leading Design London about 'Building a culture of craft.' In an interview with Simpson, he reflects:

I believe that design must be a strong cross-functional partner to any and every cross-functional discipline in order to have company and product wide impact. We have to also be product tinkers as well as designers. However, as designers, our number one priority must be our design craft and building products that solve our customers’ problems, and also delight them in moments that matter. We can’t lose sight or focus on the main thing that we are accountable for. The more passion we pour into our craft and creating outcomes we love, the more pride we have in our work. This feeds into the flywheel of culture and enabling a care for craft in everything that our company does.

The saying is," Culture is defined by the worst behavior you tolerate." I wholeheartedly believe in this statement 100%. This applies to the culture of collaboration how we respect one another, and to the craft of our work. If junior designers look at the Figma file of a lead designer, and it’s hard to use, that reflects what the team is willing to tolerate. This isn't about using frames/groups or auto layout, its how what you create is valuable for others. It may sound pedantic until you look at engineering excellence. They would not tolerate inconsistent code or unclear comments.

Leading through the craft is caring about managing the work. Mistakes will happen and the culture of craft is putting the attention and care to fix them.

Well-crafted artifacts represent our work

In Issue 144, I wrote about Creating value with artifacts. Whether we like it or not, design value is contained in well-crafted artifacts. Look at the most important artifacts of our time: The Code of Hammurabi, the Rosetta Stone of Egypt, Terra Cotta Army in China, the Liberty Bell during the American Revolution, and the Autobot Matrix of Leadership from Cybertron. These artifacts are well-crafted and designed because of the story they hold to represent the work.

The digital artifacts we create such as keynote presentations, drawings of interfaces, research insights, and brand guidelines should also withstand the test of time. Design work is deep and intangible: hours of interviews with customers, understanding the codebase and technical feasibility, mapping out how the business works, etc. I understand it is frustrating to be great at these design skills and yet be assessed by the visuals of an artifact.

Jenn Spriggs once told our team a story of her lessons in fashion design that conveys this. Presenting the dress you’re working on with all the buttons facing out consistently allows focus on more important conversations. Getting all the details right gets stakeholders focused on the most important discussions. By creating well-crafted artifacts, we then focus on grander conversations.

Craft is trust

Design is about consistency, and consistency builds trust. If you have a high bar for craft, it increases the trust your teammates have for you. Let’s go back to the basketball example. When a teammate passes the ball to you on offense, your ability to consistently make shots increases trust exponentially. Scaling craft across an entire company is no small feat; a huge transformation. Increasing trustworthy craft means you know the teammate next to you will sweat the details as you should.

In software, excellence is often described as high performance, reliability, and addressing bug fixes. Engineering should not solely be responsible for upholding these standards and needs design, product, and other counterparts to uphold the level of quality together. If forms submitted are successful 99/100 times instead of 100/100, this is the beginning of trust erosion from our customers.

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Recap

To be clear, designers with a high bar for craft without the work ethic, ability to respectfully collaborate, and articulate their work are key requirements to be a good designer. My point is not that other skills don’t matter—they do. However, there is a sequence of importance, and craft is first. This is why it’ll inevitably be the first thing you’re evaluated on. Improve on craft and invest the majority of your time in it. The rest will work itself out and unlock greater conversations.

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Hyperlinks + notes

A collection of references for this post, updates, and weekly reads.

• How to write a cold email by Carly Ayres

• I recently discovered Horse, a desktop browser: horse.browser

• An interview with Alastair Simpson