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Pre-Raphaelites

Is that a joke? Morris and the Web? William Morris (1834-1896), an outspoken “pre-industrialist” as Victorian England, endured the worst of the industrial revolution. Morris was a “Pre-Raphaelite” designer who rejected Victorian ornamentation as an unsavory product of the industrial revolution, just as he rejected the shoddy goods produced by 19th century factories. He railed against the social abuses wrought by the industrial revolution.

Arts and Crafts furniture collectors might recall that Morris designed unornamented, handcrafted furniture–very handsome and very useful stuff. The Morris chair was named after him. Or they might think of the colorful, floral tapestries and wallpaper that were inspired by medieval design. Art nouveau flowered from those buds. Morris’ influences can be seen in the Bauhaus Movement and the work of Frank Lloyd Wright.

William Morris was a talented designer but he was also a poet, novelist, printer, type designer, and bookbinder. And he was a political activist and a social theorist.

Morris and his Pre-Raphaelite colleagues rejected neo-classicism. They rejected the use of classical architectural forms, the opulent renaissance and baroque painting and sculpture, and fancy French typography. In fact, they rejected the notion of a "renaissance." The Pre-Raphaelites were not alone in their desire to return to pre-renaissance forms. Neo-gothic architecture became the rage in Britain and the Empire toward the end of the last century – much of it every bit as ornate and just as silly as the neo-classical architecture it replaced.

Of course, no one can probe the depths of a mind silent for a century. Morris had no experience with the electronic age. He was, however, outspoken about design. He had very firm ideas about design concepts which he applied very effectively.

That brings us to the Web. Morris was no Luddite.¹ He used manufacturing equipment for weaving and printing, but he preferred machines that gave craftsmen greater control. For example, he favored hand-operated presses that produced well-inked, black images. He disliked mass produced items because they were of inferior quality. A socialist philosophically, he was disgusted by the social conditions engendered by the industrial revolution.

On the other hand, the design potential offered by computers would have intrigued him. Computers offer individual craftsman unlimited creative opportunities. They also offer opportunities for unlimited irresponsibility and the expression of poor judgment. Morris developed a rigid system of design standards for his books. Some are applicable with slight modification to the Web; others require considerable twisting and bending to make them work. (Quotes are from Susan Otis Thompson’s book listed in the short bibliography. She paraphrased Morris.)

DIMENSIONS

 Morris loved white space. He packed heavy, black type–unleaded–into a white sea. He developed a hierarchy of margins with the bottom and outside being the largest. Morris was right about white space, and would be right today. Web pages should have more white space. Our brains cannot deal with long lines as single units. We unconsciously break them into two or more segments, but that slows comprehension. HTML designers have two tools to add white space and shorten lines: table typesetting and the block quote tag. Neither is used effectively by most designers.

TYPOGRAPHY

The form of type was very important to Morris. Unfortunately, the Web was developed to accommodate the users’ type collection. That restricts use to Helvetica (or Arial, a Helvetica rip-off), Times Roman, Courier–the common denominators in most collections–and Verdana. Most type faces designed for printing do not work well on the Web. Microsoft's contribution, Verdana, was designed for the Web. Microsoft bashers do not like it, or anything else produced by Microsoft. It is a very readable face although many users tend to use it in a reduced size, lessening its readability.

Morris hated the “modern” (French!) typefaces like Bodoni and Didot. Neither is suitable for the Web. And he avoided italics. Instead, he chose faces that were reminiscent of mediaeval manuscripts, and designed several himself. Most were vertical, sans serif faces. Most were very heavy. Faces like that are not popular today. Gothic faces with flared elements–Optima and Albertus–offer a bit of the scriptorium feel, and they are not as heavy. Optima, designed by Hermann Zapf, was used effectively to inscribe the names of war dead at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. In addition, Morris would probably hate script, cute, and funky typefaces. Most designers avoid them as well.

The Web needs new typefaces: broad faces with large x-heights. Those faces should be easy to read on a monitor, but they should also be attractive when printed. Adobe designed a few that qualify, but we will have to program a quick, universal download (called “embedding”) before we can use them. We use Verdana and have used Arial or Helvetica, but we do not have access to Melior and Palatino, those handsome faces also designed by Zapf. Helvetica is an efficient, clean face but it is not the best face for the Web because it is too narrow. It is much more readable than Times Roman, however, a face originally designed for tight newspaper columns.

SIMPLICITY

Morris insisted that design elements should be unobtrusive and in harmony with the type. He favored side notes² over subheads. He often filled short lines with fleurons (floral ornaments) to avoid white space. I am sure he would have resisted using bullets or any of the other tricks we use too often to catch the reader’s attention, but Morris did not have to deal with the shortened attention span in the late 20th century. Justified copy does not work well on the Web for a variety of mechanical reasons.³ While possible, side notes are a devil to organize. Most Web designers would not be willing to spend the time. And fleurons? I think I will pass.

Morris liked elaborate opening pages, usually with a mediaeval motif. (I viewed several of these pages in the rare books collection at the University of Wisconsin.) Those elaborate pages were atypical, however. Interior pages consisted of tightly packed type broken with initial letters, sometimes printed in red ink, and discrete printer elements. Morris, according to Thompson, felt that “Commercial ornaments are worthless. Medieval art is admirable; Renaissance art deplorable.” He would also object because they were not handcrafted.

SIMPLICITY, PART II

Morris died nearly 100 years before the first Web Master applied flashers, marquees, and, worse, frames. Arts and Crafts printers sought unity and simplicity. Most Web pages are disjointed and cluttered. Not only ugly, many Web pages are confusing and slow to download. I am sure that Morris would not approve.

CRAFTSMANSHIP

Morris and his colleagues looked back to a pre-industrial time when craftsmanship was valued as a virtue. They looked back to Old England, merry and pure. Along with Alfred Lord Tennyson, they dreamt about a time that never was. “’Tis only noble to be good,” Tennyson wrote.

Morris (Thompson, p. 23) held that “Each craftsman who works on the book must be an artist able to work harmoniously with the others. The overall harmony is of supreme importance.”

We are now at a turning point in the history of design. The World Wide Web offers opportunity. Do we shape the Web to fit design concepts developed for other media? Worse, do we continue to treat the Web as so much computer spew without potential for creative expression?

The Web is very new. As a craft, Web design is even newer. Morris taught us that utility and art may go hand in hand if the designers know the materials and methods of the craft, and the craftsmen understand the artistry of the design.

Suggested Reading

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1/Luddite (after Ned Ludd) was a name given to groups of early 19th century English workers who banded together to destroy manufacturing machinery because they believed that its use endangered their employment. Return to text.

2/Side notes are not easily applied on the Web, but they are not impossible. See It Can be Done for more information. Return to text.

3/The lack of automatic hyphenation is the biggest problem. Without hyphenation, justified lines force unnatural word spacing to flood the text with unpleasant white rivers. Return to text.

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