There is a resurgence in the focus on design craft again. In some ways, it feels strange to say this as craft should be a focal area in the first place. Many factors come to play with this emphasis. The first is the years (multiple) of layoffs during the recession decimated many teams. As a result, there are many designers are now working on leaner teams, starting their own companies, or still looking for work (unfortunately). With leaner teams comes The Rebalancing of Design Management, a great blog post by Cap Watkins. Generally speaking, management was too removed from the work. And of course, Artificial Intelligence seems to be the big tech paradigm shift we haven't seen since mobile apps more than a decade ago.

As a result of all these factors, we're seeing the return to craft, which is exciting during trying times. Alastair Simpson, VP of Design at Dropbox, often talks about leading through craft, including in this episode of Design Meets Business. I've had many personal conversations with Alastair about this personally. We both started our careers during a similar era of cutting our teeth in craft. Let's define what craft means by giving you my definition of it, why returning to it is an integral moment in design, and why it's inescapable.

Defining craft

Craft: Exercise skill in making (something).

Like defining quality, craft is difficult due to the subjective nature, so I’ll give you my personal definition. For me, it's four areas: foundational skills, the tool belt, acumen, behavior and culture

Foundational skills

Should designers learn to design? Why yes, I think so. Craft is the foundational skills. This may be dribbling for a basketball player, draftsmanship for an architect, or practicing strings for violinist. You can view this as the physical and muscle memory of your ability to practice a foundational skill. It's not something you think about while doing the work but executed well.

The tool belt

Craft is the tool belt and arsenal available to you; various methods, frameworks, and software tools to achieve your outcome. Some say tools don’t matter, and it’s a bit misguided. Though tools will not be the reason you develop in foundational skills, mastering the tools unlock a new level of quality, efficiency, and scale in your work. If dribbling and shooting is the foundational skills for a basketball player, the tool belt are the shoes/gear they wear and the different type of shots they know how to take. There is an infamous story about the late great Kobe Bryant where he had a few millimeters of the bottom of his shoes in 2008 to get a 100th of a second better reaction time. This is a prime example of understanding how to configure what you use.

The various tools allow range arensal of toolHaving a range of knowledge of tools allows you to go deeper and specific in key use cases. Be great at a UI drawing tool like Figma or Sketch. However, master other tools to increase the range. Combine UI drawing tools with with motion design, diagramming, programming (code or no-code), and anything else at your disposal, and you’ll be unstoppable.

Acumen

Craft is the ability to make good judgment and decisions based on a domain—acumen. This might be viewed as “strategic thinking,” but I try to avoid that term because it feels theoretical and a strategy simply should allow you to act. Acumen could be understanding the business, technology, or the customer needs—the subject matter expert.

If foundational skills is about depth and the tool belt is range, acumen focuses on relevance. Acumen is the gardeners understanding of how different climates affect plants and how to care for them. It’s the product designer having a sense of the cost of delivering value to customers.

Behavior and culture

Craft is behavior and culture. These two intertwine because culture ultimately comes down to the behaviors you advocate (and tolerate). As Janet Crawford says, “Culture is what people do when they’re not told what to do.” This is sweating the small details that lead to larger impact. It’s the designer who finishes a slide deck, only to notice a screen design is one pixel off, and puts the care to fixing it instead of being okay with the flaw.

Craft is inevitable

High craft is something you cannot avoid. Fake it till you make it is one of the worst pieces of advice because in the end, you’ll have to prove your credibility in craft. The person who directed Dune and one who directed Madame Web are both filmmakers, but one clearly stands out as having a high bar for craft (hint: it’s not Madame Web).

Leading through the craft

Over a weekend, I watched, The Secret of Whales, a documentary which featured a series about Orca whales (I’m going somewhere with this). It’s astonishing to learn about the different rituals, techniques, and strategies that vary from different orca pods. The culture of craft is passed down to future generations, whether you're a whale or human.

Leading through the craft is exceptionally important as we transition from one generation of design to the next one.

Hype links

• Last week, we launched a Figma to Replit plugin, and the reception has been wonderful. We'd love for you to try it out and give us feedback

• Software's Third Act by The Council

• Galileo AI's groundbreaking prompt-to-UI tool

Job opportunities

• We're hiring at Replit

• Perplexity is hiring a Design Engineer and Product Designer, Growth

• Daydream hiring a Content Lead, Growth Lead, and Founding Engineer