The Bases of Design

by Walter Crane

To begin with, there is the paper; a good tough handmade paper, like drawing paper, is wanted for rich and bright impressions of type or woodcuts. This must be made from the best linen rags, and each sheet is manipulated by the hands, by means of a wired frame of wood dipped into the pulp and cunningly shaken so that it (the pulp) shall spread over the wires evenly to form, when dry, the sheet of paper.

Then the type-founding must be looked after. Lettering of good form must be designed, and so designed that each letter must be separate and yet capable of forming words without undue gaps, and also legible pages of agreeable type, good in the mass and good in the single letters and words. The type-founder and designer must therefore be a man of taste and cultivation, he must have a knowledge of alphabets, of early printing and of historic MSS. and calligraphy, and he must be a capable designer, able to appreciate the niceties of line, the value of a curve, of balance and mass, proportion and appropriate scale.

Mr. Morris had several typical ancient types photographed upon a large scale so as to more easily compare their design and structure, and founded his own designs for his Kelmscott founts more or less upon them, giving them, whether Roman or Gothic, a distinctive character of their own. This is about as near as one can get in our conscious, selective way to old methods, in which individuals from time to time introduced small variations, while adhering to the general style and form, so that the collective traditional influence and historic continuity is preserved with the cumulative advantages of individual invention.

Of the placing of the type-page upon the paper, regarding the double page of the open book as the true unit, I have before spoken, and a great deal of art comes into the setting of the type, so as to disperse it without leaving "rivers" or gaps—much as a designer of a repeating pattern would seek to avoid running into awkward accidental lines. Constructive principle would here come in, and should be serviceable to the printer in enabling him to preserve a pleasant and harmonious ornamental effect in his page.

The designer of printers' ornaments and book illustrations, too, if he wishes to make his work an essential and harmonious part of the book is, while free in his own sphere, bound to remember the conditions under which his work will be produced and seen; and, so far from regarding these conditions as restraints, should rather regard them as sources of suggestion in the treatment of his designs, making his initial letters and decorative borders and headings natural links to unite the formal ornamental element of the type-page with the informal inclosed panel of figure design which, in its treatment of line or black and white mass, may be but an extension of the same principles found in any individual letter of the type-mass. The mechanical reason for this is, of course, that it simplifies the process of printing, type and woodcut being subject to the same pressure.

With good paper and ink, with good, well-cut type and woodcut ornaments and illustrations, the success of the book now depends upon the actual printer, as defective printing, poor impressions, the blocks not up to full strength, the impressions blurred, would spoil the effect of the best work. Bright, clean impressions are wanted, and much care and skill are required to secure such, as well as time to allow the sheets to dry well before being made up into book form.

GOLD-TOOLED BOOK COVER. DESIGNED BY T. J. COBDEN-SANDERSON.

Finally the binder takes up the tale of collective skill necessary to the production of that one of the most beautiful of beautiful things—a beautiful book.