The Morris philosophy

Strawberry Thief - William Morris

“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful”

- William Morris

I saw a tee-shirt that read “Morris was right”, in reference to this quote. Indeed, Morris was right.

I approach my design work with this in mind. I recently found myself adding icons, images, making text bigger, filling space to please a client. By the final round of revisions my carefully considered structure, hierarchy, balance, was all but a ghost. In my mind it was their work, not mine.

This quote helps me fight my corner. By defining the objectives of a project we can ask what value is added by the use of additional graphics and images. Are they useful? Are they beautiful?

Morris was in no way a pioneer of minimalism, but a perfect example of balance.