Talwin Morris

Upon entering the Hill House, one of the first rooms to greet you is Walter Blackie’s personal sanctuary: the library. It is not only the beauty of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s interior design scheme that will encourage you to linger here a little longer but also the stunning collection of books. The library is home to an array of beautiful Blackie & Son (and their subsidiary company The Gresham Publishing Co) books.

The end of the 19th century was a time of great change and debate in the world of book cover design, something that did not pass by Blackie & Son. Development of machinery in the 1820s had made possible cloth binding and the mass production of books, which in turn led to many exciting discussions about book cover designs. Artists and designers began considering the book as a designed object, questioning a book cover’s function and debating whether the cover should reflect a book’s contents.

The type of design was another key consideration. There were three main categories of design at this time: pictorial; evocative or symbolic; and decorative and ornamental. This all led to a rise in more artistic and personalised design schemes, with book covers featuring in articles and art & design exhibitions.

Many of the books in the Hill House library were designed by Talwin Morris, who was the head of Blackie & Son’s Art Department from 1893–1909. Below is how his job was advertised:

Like Mackintosh, Morris was a trained architect. He first came to graphic design in 1891 when he took a job as an art sub-editor for the magazine Black & White. Morris took a modern approach to his book cover designs; his designs extended the influence and reach of the Glasgow Style. He used decorative and symbolic elements in his designs rather than the typical pictorial style of the time. His designs were tailored to their markets, and it was his designs for The Gresham Publishing Company that were the most elaborate. Here, his motifs were carefully chosen, each referencing the contents of the book.