Master Your Craft : Strategies for Designing, Making, and Selling Artisan Work

This book outlines a powerful process for designing and creating beautiful work that is practical to make and sell. Perspectives from 22 master artisans fuse with industrial product design techniques and the author’s own craftwork experience, focusing sharp insight on the process of creating original work. To use this book, begin with its suggestions for gathering ideas, brainstorming designs, and committing to an ambitious new project. Next, follow the supplied framework for evaluating, changing, and critiquing your work. Apply the book’s design guidelines to make your work more visually powerful, useful, and simple to create. Finally, use this guide’s advice to grow as an artisan: Find your voice, develop your skills, sell your work, and (if you want) make craftwork a career. Packed with insights from glassworkers, ceramicists, woodworkers, fiber artists, metalworkers, and more, it provides a solid framework to build on for craftspeople who want to produce spectacular work.

This book outlines a powerful process for designing and creating beautiful work that is practical to make and sell. Perspectives from 22 master artisans fuse with industrial product design techniques and the author’s own craftwork experience, focusing sharp insight on the process of creating original work. To use this book, begin with its suggestions for gathering ideas, brainstorming designs, and committing to an ambitious new project. Next, follow the supplied framework for evaluating, changing, and critiquing your work. Apply the book’s design guidelines to make your work more visually powerful, useful, and simple to create. Finally, use this guide’s advice to grow as an artisan: Find your voice, develop your skills, sell your work, and (if you want) make craftwork a career. Packed with insights from glassworkers, ceramicists, woodworkers, fiber artists, metalworkers, and more, it provides a solid framework to build on for craftspeople who want to produce spectacular work.