DES 40B Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: The Great Exhibition, Geoffrey Chaucer, Maker Culture
LECTURE 3: 4/10/18: The Arts and Crafts as the pioneer “Maker Movement”
• William Morris
o Regarded as founder of Arts and Crafts movement
o Believed in power of beauty to transform human lives
• Arts and Crafts in the US
o Group of influential architects, designers, and educators in late 1890s
▪ Determined to bring design reforms begun in Britain by Morris to the US
o Arts and Crafts considered “craftsman” style of architecture, furniture, and other
decorative arts
• William Morris, The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer
o Chaucer is known as the greatest English poet of the MIddle Ages, and a
founding father of English lit.
▪ Ex: The Canterbury Tales 1387-1400
o Meant to “slow down” progress and innovation
o Meant to be a political statement
o Design:
▪ Composition: balance
• Easy to the eye
▪ Border: wanted to establish a sense of nature within the book
• Attempt to reconnect readers with where we came from: nature
▪ Black and white
▪ Art: shows a sense of love
• Wants to bring us back to the Middle Ages
• Art into Life
▪ Sees the world as changeable
o Morris is a Utopian
▪ Tries to describe the perfect life
o Followed font of Jenson
▪ Took photographs of Jensen’s work and zoomed in
▪ Recopied every letter
• 1. Inspiration of Tradition
o Inspiration of incunabula (early printed books of the 15th century) and their
woodcut illustrations
o Handmade paper
o Top Edition: Bound in vellum (fine parchment made originally from the skin of a
calf)
o Channels the past through copying Jensen’s shapes of letters
• 2. Inspiration of Nature
o Patterns inspired by flora and fauna
o Believes it is a source of “truth” in the world
o As opposed to the growth of the “artificial world”
• 3. Honesty, Authenticity
o Emphasizes the qualities of how the book has been made
▪ Handmade paper, traditional inks, deep printing, tactile
o Works with quality of materials itself
• 4. Cohesion of Composition
o Spacing
▪ Relationship of black print to white ground
▪ Integration of text and decorations
▪ “Architectural” double page spread: sense of all elements combines into a
grander whole
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