The Victorian Renaissance Man
William Morris was many kinds of man: visual artist, poet, political activist, and Marxist theoretician.
He was also many kinds of designer. Morris designed numerous, special one-off objects that he either made himself, the design often evolving through the processes of making, or collaborated on with his craftworkers and friends.
Morris designed for one-off and small-batch production in his early workshops and for relatively large-scale production runs in later days at his factory at Merton Abbey. To an extent that few people are aware of, he designed other products to be made by subcontractors and sold through his firm’s showrooms. He acted
