1. The old unity

    The most fundamental splits in contemporary life occur because of the break-up of the old unity of design, production and enjoyment.

  2. Defining craftsmanship

    By craftsmanship I refer to a style of work and a way of life having the following characteristics:

    1. In craftsmanship there is no ulterior motive for work other than the product being made and the processes of its creation.
    2. In craftsmanship, plan and performance are unified, and in both, the craftsman is master of the activity and of himself in the process. The craftsman is free to begin his working according to his own plan, and during the work he is free to modify its shape and the manner of its shaping.
    3. Since he works freely, the craftsman is able to learn from his work, to develop as well as use his capacities.
    4. The craftsman’s way of livelihood determines and infuses his entire mode of living. For him there is no split of work and play, of work and culture. His work is the mainspring of his life; he does not flee from work into a separate sphere of leisure; he brings to his non-working hours the values and qualities developed and employed in his working time.
  3. The central value for which they stand

    What I am suggesting to you is that designers ought to take the value of craftsmanship as the central value for which they stand; that in accordance with it they ought to do their work; and that they ought to use its norms in their social and economic and political visions of what society ought to become.

  4. The star system

    The distributor is ascendant over many producers who become the rank-and-file workmen of the commercially established cultural apparatus.

    The star system of American culture – along with the commercial hacks – tend to kill off the chance of the cultural workman to be a worthy craftsman.

  5. As if it were an advertisement

    He designs the product itself as if it were an advertisement, for his aim and his task – acknowledged by the more forthright – is less to make better products than to make products sell better.

  6. The Big Lie

    “We only give them what they want.”

    This is The Big Lie of mass culture and of debased art, and also it is the weak excuse for the cultural default of many designers.

  7. The Fetish of human life

    To understand the case of America today, one must understand the economic trends and the selling mechanics of a capitalist world in which the mass production and the mass sale of goods has become The Fetish of human life, the pivot both of work and of leisure.

    Existing commodities must be worn out more quickly for as the market is saturated, the economy becomes increasingly dependent upon what is called replacement. It is then that obsolescence comes to be planned and the economic cycle deliberately shortened.

  8. The big split

    The big split among designers and their frequent guilt; the enriched muddle of ideals they variously profess and the insecurity they often feel about the practice of their craft; their often great disgust and their crippling frustration.