This year, I had the joy of curating Harmonic’s Practice Week, and we centered it around something that felt more important than ever: creativity and craft. The focus is on balancing bold, imaginative play with internal reflection and engagement within our communities. We participated in a range of activities, including creative writing, flag design, letterpress, storytelling, and a discussion on civic design.
I found myself wanting to return to craft—to stay creatively grounded in an uncertain world, and to reconnect with the tactile and actionable joy of design. And we’re not alone; it seems that everywhere I look, creativity is on the rise. Gen Z is rediscovering “grandma hobbies” like quilting, knitting, and scrapbooking. Libraries and maker spaces are buzzing, and physical books are suddenly “sexy” once more. My friends and I, who mostly work in tech, have even started an art night, where we draw together. In a world dominated by algorithms and AI-everything, people are finding balance in craft—tactile, embodied ways of making.
This isn’t just nostalgia. It’s a reminder that creativity isn’t only about output; it’s about process, practice, and presence. And to quote from one of my favorite artists, Mark Rothko, “a painting is not a picture of an experience, but it is the experience.” To echo Rothko (which sounds ridiculous, I know), we say this time and time again with our clients—it’s the act of making the journey map, the discussion when we’re blueprinting together, and the decisions made in workshops where the real work lies.
Durability and Creativity Through Constraint
Service designers, much like quilters, work with the organizational systems available to them. Just as a jazz musician improvises within a scale, we navigate within the boundaries set by policy and governance. At Harmonic, we frequently use these two metaphors, often discussing orchestration, jazz, and remixing in the context of our work, and weaving is likened to connecting stories. Craft is not about limitless possibilities; even improvisation has its own set of rules. Instead, it involves skillful creation within constraints, which is what gives it its backbone.
One of our Practice Week activities was letterpress printing, which rekindled my love for typography. I first got into type years ago when I was working as a graphic and exhibit designer at the zoo. A friend gave me a free ticket to TypeCon (yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like)
I ended up at a talk on typography in Midwestern gravestones—something I’d never thought of as a hotbed of creativity. But those carvings were full of craft, shaped by constraints: the tools, the stone, the shapes of the alphabets themselves. Imagine trying to carve a serif font like Times New Roman in the curves of the Armenian or Korean alphabet. It just doesn’t quite work—and that’s the point.
And maybe that’s why this cultural turn back to making, whether it’s pottery, zines, or hand-bound books, resonates so much. Craft reminds us that constraint is not the enemy of creativity; it’s the medium.
Toward a Culture of Craft in Organizations
If younger generations are rediscovering the joy of craft, organizations can too. One of the methods I want to try with a client is one my colleague, Mariah Mills, suggested in working with collage. The thought of cutting paper, instead of moving virtual sticky notes, which now consumes my day, sounds liberating and presents itself with so many more affordances that the efficiency of digital tools simply can’t offer—texture, tool variety, and those happy accidents that make making fun. There’s something grounding about working with your hands that brings out quieter voices and unlocks new metaphors. I imagine that collage helps teams see patterns, contradictions, or even shared aspirations they couldn’t identify in a spreadsheet.
Maybe this new arts & crafts moment is reminding us of something essential: the future of design isn’t just digital or AI-driven—it’s deeply, stubbornly human.
Maybe our role as service designers is to help institutions find their “craft” again—to ground lofty strategies in the very human, sometimes messy work of making things real.
Craft is not opposed to technology (technology can be a tool for craft!). It’s a way of orienting ourselves within it—slowing down, practicing care, and building something lasting. Maybe this new arts & crafts moment is reminding us of something essential: the future of design isn’t just digital or AI-driven—it’s deeply, stubbornly human.
