Some Hints on Pattern Designing

by William Morris

"...people have called this art ornamental art, though indeed all real art is ornamental." Thus begins Some Hints on Pattern Designing, a formative lecture given in 1881 by the master of decorative arts, William Morris (1834-1896). In this lecture, Morris, one of the leading founders of the British Arts & Crafts movement, discusses not only methods of pattern designing, but also the philosophy behind art, ornamentation, and the innate human desire for surface decoration. This Juniper Grove printing is a photo-reproduction of the original edition, which was printed in 1899 at the Chiswick Press.

48 pages, Paperback

First published May 11, 2007

About the author

William Morris was an English architect, furniture and textile designer, artist, writer, socialist and Marxist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement. Morris wrote and published poetry, fiction, and translations of ancient and medieval texts throughout his life. His best-known works include The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems (1858), The Earthly Paradise (1868–1870), A Dream of John Ball and the utopian News from Nowhere. He was an important figure in the emergence of socialism in Britain, founding the Socialist League in 1884, but breaking with the movement over goals and methods by the end of that decade. He devoted much of the rest of his life to the Kelmscott Press, which he founded in 1891. The 1896 Kelmscott edition of the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer is considered a masterpiece of book design.