Handmade, Manufactory, Series: What the Terms Mean

Handmade

The term says that a person was involved in making it. It does not say at which step.

With paper scooped from the pulp, a vase thrown on the wheel or a woven rug, handwork is the core of the process: without the hand, the form never comes into being at all. With a lamp, on the other hand, the same term can mean that the shade, the lamp holder and the cable were produced industrially and then assembled by hand. Both statements are correct. But only the first makes each piece unique; the second does not.

It is therefore worth distinguishing between handwork that gives form and handwork in final assembly. Form-giving handwork shows in the result – in wall thickness, contour and surface. Hand assembly concerns the joining of parts that are already finished and usually leaves no trace in the visible result.

Nor does the term say anything about the effort involved. How long someone worked on a piece, how many people were involved and how many operations are needed cannot be read from the word. It can be a single movement of the hand or a process over several days, with pauses for drying and firing in between.

The more precise variants are more informative: hand-formed, hand-painted, hand-scooped, hand-woven, hand-sanded. They name the step instead of the feeling. Anyone who finds them in a description knows what the statement refers to and can check it against the product.

Manufactory

This term is not a protected title that has to be applied for either. It originally described an operation in which work is done by hand and with a division of labour – more than a workshop, then, and less than a factory.

Today it is also used by anyone who produces only on a small scale. Some mean a handful of people at the potter's wheel, others a hall full of machines with a few manual steps at the end. Both uses are common, and the word alone does not reveal which is meant.

The more useful question is therefore not whether the word “manufactory” appears, but how large the series is, which steps are carried out by hand and whether the pieces are allowed to differ from one another. Where these three details are missing, the term carries little information.

Series production is not the opposite of quality

This is where things get uncomfortable, because half the interior industry claims the opposite.

Industrial production is more precise than handwork. Anyone who wants a set of six cups that are exactly the same height and whose handles sit identically will get that from series production and not from a workshop. For stacking, for lids that fit every vessel and for parts that are joined together later, the machine's repeat accuracy is also a real advantage.

But series production can also produce the opposite, if that is what is wanted. A mould can be designed so that it reproduces irregular contours, coarse textures or seemingly random edges. The handcrafted look is then part of the design and not a consequence of manufacture. That is honest, as long as it is also described that way.

The difference can be recognised on the product itself: designed irregularity repeats itself. It sits in the same place on every piece, because it comes from the same mould. Genuine variation moves around – on the next piece the dent sits somewhere else or not at all.

Handwork is the better choice when the variation is meant to be genuine: for one-off pieces, for objects, for everything that does not have to work as a set. Series production is the better choice where uniformity is needed. That is a question of purpose and not a ranking.

Where handwork actually shows

Not in the word in the description, but in four things in the product photo and the stated dimensions.

Dimensional tolerances. If the details say “dimensions may vary slightly”, that points to handwork or to naturally grown material. What has been shaped by hand or cut from a natural material cannot be repeated to the millimetre. Series-made products, by contrast, are listed with fixed dimensions.

Glaze flow. With hand-applied glaze, the edge is uneven, the coat is often thinner at the top than at the bottom, and there are small pinholes or runs. Where the glaze is equally thick everywhere and ends at exactly the same line, it was applied by machine.

Repetition. Two photographs of the same item that show exactly the same pattern point to a mould, a print or a coating. With naturally grown material nothing repeats: grain, veining and inclusions occur exactly once.

Edges and backs. Handwork can be recognised on the side nobody sees: by tool marks, by the imprint of the base, by a seam that was not quite smoothed off. Where the back is just as flawless as the front, that points to machine production, which, as explained above, is no criticism.

None of the four features is proof on its own. Together they give a fairly reliable picture.

How to recognise an honest product description

A description that holds up names working steps instead of moods. “Thrown by hand on the wheel”, “painted by hand” or “sanded by hand” can be checked on the piece. “Made with love”, “carefully refined” or “traditional craftsmanship” cannot be checked, because what is stated there is not a process but a feeling.

The same applies to materials. A reliable statement names the substance and, where several are used, the build-up: which wood, which stone, which type of ceramic, what is the carcass and what is the surface. Umbrella terms such as “natural material”, “precious wood” or “metal” conceal exactly the information that matters.

Another sign: imitations are declared as such. Where a surface only imitates a material, the addition “effect” or “look” should be there. A coated or printed substrate board is something different from the solid material, even if both look the same in the photo. The difference is one word and the whole point.

And finally the dimensions. An honest description states tolerances where there are any, instead of keeping quiet about them. A note about possible deviations is not a flaw but a mark of quality in the description: it shows that someone actually knows the product.

What is missing says as much as what is there. If the material, the production step and the dimensional tolerance are all missing at once, the word “handmade” alone tells you nothing.