Crafts magazine unveils a fresh look for a new era

Crafts has been refreshed and reinvigorated for its landmark September/October 2020 issue, which celebrates the power of making to bring people together.

The bi-monthly magazine has been the international authority on craft for nearly 50 years and is a collector’s item in its own right. The new-look Crafts has a lively, fresh and contemporary design and an editorial approach that explores how making can enhance all facets of life, from the clothes we wear to the spaces we inhabit.

To mark its transformation, Crafts’ September/October issue champions those it calls ‘change makers’: the artists, designers, thinkers and organisations who are using craft skills and processes to make a positive impact, whether socially, ecologically or politically.

For its cover story, it transports us to rural Mexico, where designer Fernando Laposse is driving a project that shows how craft can transform everything from farming and communities to livelihoods and ecology – while producing sustainably made objects instilled with a good dose of humour (the sisal monster gracing the magazine’s cover, included). Elsewhere, it meets the innovators turning ceramics green and the people campaigning for museums to return objects acquired during colonisation.

New writers for the issue include V&A East director Gus Casely-Hayford, who discusses the threads that bind us in his inaugural Crafts column; Chicago-based textile artist Aram Han Sifuentes, who explores the making of protest; and novelist Tracy Chevalier who meditates on the healing power of quilting.

‘Over the past few months, the world has undergone a seismic shift,' says Crafts’ editor Malaika Byng. ‘It therefore feels right for Crafts to be more responsive to the complexities of the world around it, delving deeper into the context in which work is created, shedding light on a broader range of narratives and forms of making, and working with a wider range of contributors within the cultural sector, all while continuing to celebrate skill and the joys of making.’

The magazine is co-published by the Crafts Council and The River Group in the UK and is sold internationally. It has been redesigned by Matt Ford, creative director of The River Group, and features beautiful photography shot everywhere from Mexico to Nigeria.

‘As craft offers such compelling visuals, my aim was to give a fluidity to the layouts, to allow the striking imagery to breathe, and to offer changes of pace,’ says Ford. ‘I took inspiration from the work of Willy Fleckhaus, who made photography king, while using expressive typographic treatments.’