The executive director of the Crafts Council on Design Days Dubai and how makers are tackling new technologies

On the surface, a high-end art fair held in Dubai and a digital conference in Bristol might not seem to have very much in common. But both act as important indicators of...

The Executive Director of the Crafts Council on Michael Gove and the place of making in the future of education

'We want our education system to equal the best in the world,' says the Department for Education in its response to the consultation on the controversial English Baccalaureate Certificates. It's...

In many respects Chennai was an apposite spot to hold the World Crafts Council's International Summit. A city historically rich in making, it's also at the heart of India's burgeoning new economy, being the nation's second largest exporter of software, information technology and information-technology-enabled services. In other words it's a...

Much has changed for the London Design Festival since it launched in 2003. Initially viewed as a bit of an arriviste - muscling in on the scene created by the likes of 100% Design and designersblock - it has successfully cast itself as the umbrella brand for an...

The brilliant scholar and critic Reyner Banham was best known for his treatises on architecture, where he would compare ice cream vans with mediaeval cathedrals and explain the importance of bike sheds. However, he was originally trained as an aero engineer and it was this background of actually making stuff...

'We believe that the future of craft lies in nurturing talent; children and young people must be able to learn about craft at school and have access to excellent teaching throughout their education.'

It's one of the Crafts Council's key pledges and it's why we're so proud (justifiably, I think)...

Octavia Hill recognised the value of craft early on in her life. It became a constant in a lifetime of combating social problems, from the toy factory she managed for the Ladies Guild in 1852, aged just 14, to the craft classes that she later offered to Southwark tenants. In...

In 1774, the first Josiah Wedgwood wrote: 'I have often wish'd I had saved a single specimen of all the new articles I have made, and would now give 20 times the original value for such a collection. For 10 years past I have omitted doing this, because I did...

We live in an era of flux. Technology is changing the way we work and consume, opening up new markets and transforming the manner in which traditional industries - music, newspapers, book publishing - go about their business. It is likely that the recent banking crisis in the west will...

The nitty-gritty policy work that the Crafts Council does on behalf of the craft sector is not perhaps as glamorous as high profile exhibitions like the recent Power of Making at the V&A (their second most popular exhibition in the last ten years) or the international fair

The Crafts Council and V&A's joint exhibition Power of Making is heading towards becoming one of the V&A's most successful free exhibitions ever.

It was a wonderful way to kick-start the Crafts Council's 40th anniversary celebrations in September this year. It has been hugely gratifying to see hoards...