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William Morris's Typefaces

© A. Wilson

If William Morris may be said to have been the most influential figure in the decorative arts, then his Kelmscott Press was one of the most influential presses in the history of printing. He was not only a prolific writer and speaker, as well as a designer and an artist, but he was also a bibliophile. He had a rather extensive library which also housed the fine illuminated manuscripts and incunabula that he collected. Morris had made many manuscripts himself and designed their decorative borders and initials. He had an interest in typography and had had some experience designing volumes for his own narrative poems; in 1866, Morris had begun an illustrated folio edition of the Earthly Paradise for the Chiswick Press. The Arts and Crafts movement, and in particular the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, allowed him the opportunity to come contact with other bookbinders, such as Emery Walker, and Walter Crane.

By the 1880s, Morris had given up many of his other artistic and political endeavours giving him time to follow his interests in book binding. He decided to create his own private press at Kelmscott House. The location that Morris chose allowed Walker and Morris to work together extensively as Walker lived locally. This collaboration of talent enabled Morris to write and translate over a third of the books himself eventually published at Kelmscott. Within his lifetime, Morris designed every edition published at his press, drawing almost seven hundred ornaments, borders and initials.

Morris's philosophy in bookbinding reflected his other artistic beliefs. He believed that books should be beautiful; but not only ornamentally so. He thought that a book may be beautiful in its own right, providing that it was well designed. That is, the pages and typeset should be both easy to read whilst exerting its own artist creativity. Therefore, Morris spent a great deal of time developing easy to read typefaces which were complimented by the fine hand made paper and vellum bindings. Morris attempted, through the Kelmscott Press, to re-create the Gothic feel which was found in printing in the last quarter of the fifteenth century.

The first typeface he designed was the Golden, which was used in the first book printed at Kelmscott, The Glittering Plain, published on May 8, 1891. It is named for the first title that was to be published at Kelmscott: Caxton's translation of Voragine's The Golden Legend. Unfortunately, the first batch of paper that was sent from the mill was unsuitable for a work of such length. and the shorter Glittering Plain emerged first. The Golden would perhaps be the one of the most difficult faces for Morris to design. It was based on the type used by Nicolaus Jenson, the fifteenth century Venetian printer and Morris utilised photographs of Jenson's work as used by Nicolaus and Jacobus Rubens on which to base his design. He balanced the Renaissance type style by making it slightly heavier to match the woodcut borders and illustrations of the Kelmscott Press books.

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