Art Deco and the Arts and Crafts movement were quite popular during the early part of the 20th century, with the Arts and Crafts movement lasting from approximately 1890 to 1915, and the Art Deco movement taking the stage from 1910 to 1939.
Both aesthetics are quite relevant to today’s design sensiblity, but you don’t want to confuse the two.
Here are some handy pointers to tell one from the other.
vs. 
ART DECO: Modern materials, clean lines, geometric shapes, machine made.
ARTS and CRAFTS: Traditional materials, fluid lines, biomorphic and natural shapes, shows the mark of the hand-finisher.
DECO: Roots in Cubism, Modernism Art Nouveau
A&C: Roots in roots
ART DECO DESIGN STARS:
Paul Manship (I walk by a copy of one of his statues almost every day on my walk through the ‘hood)
Grant Wood See those geometric shapes?
Wiliam Van Alen, designer of the Chrysler Building and its creepy-cool gargoyles.
A&C DESIGN STARS:
Gustav Stickley. His handmade furniture is still available!
Leeeeetle bit of a control freak. Designed everything in the house, down to the toliet paper holders. Just kidding. Any one of his buildings is a marvel of art and design. Living in one, would be like living in a museum. You can’t just put up a velvet painting of dogs playing poker in a house designed by FLW.
INFLUENCE TODAY:
IF YOU LIKE DECO: You’d like CB2, West Elm, and The Paris Apartment
IF YOU LIKE ARTS-n-CRAFTS: These companies…, Handmade paper from Paper Source, and this great British website
