Professionalism, Amateurism and the Boundaries of Design

The focus of this special issue is the constantly changing relationships between amateur and professional practice during the last century or so, over the course of the ascent of modernism in design. In Europe and the USA, this period has seen the emergence and growth of the design professions and concurrently the development of design practice as an unpaid undertaking in myriad forms ranging from handicrafts, to DIY, to digital tinkering. Given the porous nature of the boundaries between professional and amateur, this introduction does not attempt to define once and for all these slippery terms. Indeed, this special issue demonstrates that it is impossible to do so. Rather, it examines the themes of influence and alterity that recur in design in diverse locations, periods and practices. As we shall see the terms ‘amateur’ and ‘professional’ can have both positive and negative connotations and are often contrasted with each other.1