Advanced Design Relationship and Mutual Reframing between Global Makers and Local Craftsmen

This paper analyses two contemporary phenomena: local craftsmanship and the digital self-production of the “makers”. It highlights the role of “reactivating value” which the designer already performs, intervening on the forms, functions and meaning of the process and products of local craftsmanship which, in many parts of the world, is suffering a market crisis. The study simultaneously criticises the current operational and, particularly, the cultural condition of the makers, who succeed in using technologies in the production phase and in online communication, often without achieving an adequate result on the contemporary market. It reports the case of an action carried out in Italy, through which design performs a contemporary re-signification and a re-framing of the value of craftsmanship, maintaining the essence of the authenticity that characterises the product and the process of the local master craftsman. This case shows that the designer can, in both cases (makers and craftsman), play an unprecedented key role of “triangulation” of the experiences, succeeding in having makers and craftsmen work together, each borrowing the virtues of the other and mitigating the problems,