Sam Maguinness — Digital Craft: A Benchmark for the Future

Sam Maguinness is the Associate Creative Director at R/GA and previously was Melbourne’s CHE Proximity as Head of Digital Craft in 2013. In his article, Maguinness states that “craft, by definition, is an activity that involves making things by hand”. He goes on to point out that digital design needs the aspects of craftsmanship in order to evolve beyond what it is now. To him, digital design is inanimate and requires much more attention to detail to recreate a similar experience as something physical.

Maguinness uses the invention of the eBook as an example of poor skeuomorphism. It is a literal replication of the physical printed text and fails to properly serve the user. Tactility in digital design can mean a smoother blend into our everyday lives. He points out that its not just visuals that make this seamless experience, it’s the interaction design, the build of the code, and how content is filtered to you that makes a successful design. All of these components make a design feel “tactile, considered and crafted”. For this to happen, Maguinness states that you need “the best craftsmen to own each asset of the digital experience”. In order to create these “crafted solutions” you need people to that are both pedantic and passionate about the possibilities of digital design.

Overall, Maguinness does not reference craft as the physical construction of objects, but he applies the mindset and process that craftspeople go through and applies it to digital designers who share the same way of thinking. Those designers are the ones that think through every layer in the design stages, similarly to a traditional craftsman, and ultimately produce a product that has a much better experience and integration into our lives.