Arts & Crafts Book Design vs Craftsman

Craftsman is the cross-discipline counterpart of Arts & Crafts Book Design — the Arts & Crafts ethic shared by the bungalow and the private-press book.

The Kelmscott Chaucer (1896) — William Morris, Kelmscott Press

Arts & Crafts Book Design

A reform movement in book design led by William Morris's Kelmscott Press, reviving dense medieval page architecture with hand-drawn borders, woodcut ornament, and unified type-and-image craft.

  • Dense medieval-revival text blocks
  • Wide foliate woodcut borders
  • Hand-drawn historicist typefaces
  • Blackletter and roman incunabula models
  • Integrated type, ornament, and illustration
Full Arts & Crafts Book Design guide →
Gamble House, Pasadena — Craftsman

Craftsman

An American domestic style that translated Arts and Crafts ideals into low-slung, timber-rich houses with deep porches and exposed structure, celebrating visible woodwork and an easy indoor-outdoor relationship.

  • Low-pitched gabled roofs with wide overhanging eaves
  • Exposed rafter tails and decorative timber brackets
  • Deep front porches on tapered (battered) piers
  • Frankly expressed wood structure and built-in joinery
  • Natural materials — stained timber, clinker brick, river stone
Full Craftsman guide →

At a glance

Arts & Crafts Book DesignCraftsman
Era1860s–1900s1900–1930
DisciplineGraphic DesignArchitecture
RegionBritain, United StatesUnited States, California, Pacific Northwest
FamilyArts & Crafts, RevivalArts & Crafts
Formal traitshand-lettered, foliate-border, historicist, medieval-revivalhorizontal, timber, low-pitched, exposed-structure

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