Cultural and communication common grounds in art craft and design

Handcrafts and design have a common ground and an essential difference: they share the ability to produce interface cultural objects but while the craftsman moulds, the designer projects. Design and handcraft share nowadays a new important characteristic since they meet a new market macro-trend that is expressed by the refusal of mass solutions and the demand of personalised products. Products able to perform in this area give the user a special sense of fulfilment since they become a communication channel, an extension of the self. This mechanism can be found in several products, able to establish with users a special and personalised dialog: the Portuguese lovers’ handkerchief, that is reinterpreted in it’s function by users; the Freitag bags, that invites users to define the message they will carry, participating in its production through selecting the recycled truck tarpaulin and the specific part to be used to manufacture the bag; and the “a-poc” Miyake’s cloth that requires the user to define the final design and to finish the piece. The paper goes through the analysis of these three cases and discusses the level of design-user interaction needed to meet the user in its own ground at a communication level. It also reflects over the cultural and communication grounds that link the work of craftsmen and designers