partly illiterate seals were of great importance for verifying documents, and it

7
Medieval attitudes towards design were still very much present in the 
workshops of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is a temptation 
for example, to think of a rushlight holder as a typically 'craft' object. The 
temptation is increased because the rushlight itself is no longer part of our 
own technology, having been replaced by the electric light bulb. However, if 
one looks at the holder itself without prejudice, one sees that it is in fact very 
well designed for its purpose, which is to hold a burning rush dipped in tallow in 
a safe and stable fashion. For a modern industrial designer, handed the same 
problem, would be hard to find a better basic solution, and rushlight holders 
in fact vary much less among themselves than the whole vast range of modern 
table lamps, which are solutions to the problem of holding a bulb so that the light 
it gives will be effective and fall in the right place. 
Eighteenth-century design philosophy was in many respects very close to 
that professed today. Designers excelled in devising plain but practical forms, 
with just enough ornamental detail to prevent dullness The George II walnut 
commode is basically a plain rectangular box. But its rectangularity is relieved 
both by the waist moulding under the top drawer and by the bracket feet. 
These are especially important visually as they link the chest firmly to the 
ground, without making it seem heavy. Modern designers have been unable to 
surpass plain Georgian furniture of this type. 
Metalwork in precious metals could, by contrast, be extremely ornate for 
reasons of ostentation and to show how much the craftsman-designer appre-
ciated the fine quality of the material he was using. Yet a great deal shows ex-
treme functional simplicity. The first English teapot, which dates to about 
1670, is made of silver and looks more like a coffee-pot to twentieth-century 
eyes. But it shows an admirably direct use of material. A kettle on a stand, 
of about 1710–20, is almost equally plain. It is only in the curving cast feet of 
the stand that a little Baroque exuberance breaks out. 
Eighteenth-century concern with visual style led to the issue of numerous 
pattern-books for the guidance of furniture-makers and their patrons. It would, 
however, be idle to pretend that there are no differences between eighteenth-
century design attitudes and our own. The eighteenth-century household 
possessed many fewer machines than a contemporary one, and these ma-
chines were often of a type now completely obsolete. Few modern households 
consider a spinning-wheel to be a necessity. A standard mid-eighteenth-
century example is sturdily constructed of wood, following a design, which 
had evolved over a long period. The turning on the legs and on the spokes of 
the wheel reveals the maker's love of ornament – something that would be 
less individually expressed at the present day. A somewhat later spinning 
wheel, designed for a more elegant setting, is cleaner in line – but the fact that 

8
it is made of fine mahogany, banded with satinwood, reveals its status as a 
drawing-room ornament.
Eighteenth-century designers produced a wide range of precision instru-
ments for various purposes. They were of considerable complexity. They were 
sometimes unable to restrain an exuberant feeling for decoration, especially 
when the instrument in question was produced for an important patron.
Anyone interested in the pre-history of design must be prepared to look 
beyond Europe, simply because so many of the leading designers of our own 
day have drawn inspiration from non-European sources. Islamic art, for exam-
ple, has been laid under contribution by many leading designers, from the 
mid-nineteenth century onwards. The powerful forms of some Ottoman met-
alwork foreshadow what leading modern designers have tried to achieve, and 
do it perhaps better than they, because the shapes are less self-conscious. Is-
lamic manipulation of abstract pattern has been especially influential. The six-
teenth-century Isnik tile treats the problem of repetition without monotony in 
an especially subtle way. Such tiles were used to cover large areas of wall in 
mosques and other buildings. 
An even more profound contribution to modern design philosophy has 
been made by the peoples of the Far East. Chinese and especially Japanese 
tools and implements of all kinds seem to have achieved functional perfection 
through a long period of evolution, without the conscious intervention of a de-
signer. These tools continue to be manufactured in precisely the same form at 
the present day because nothing better for the intended purpose has been dis-
covered. Certain of them –
the Japanese pull-saw is a case in point –have be-
come increasingly popular in Europe, as craftsmen discover their superior 
qualities. When trying to trace the sources of modern design, one must also be 
prepared to think in cross-cultural terms. Water, demanding and dangerous, as 
well as being a convenient means of transportation for men and goods, ex-
cited the usually anonymous talents of designers in many cultures. The dou-
ble-ended birchbark canoe, meant to be paddled, is the simplest. It is very 
light –
the man in it has to move little more than his own weight and anything 
he may be taking with him. It can easily be lifted out of the water and carried 
overland until occasion comes to launch it again. It is made of easily available 
materials. The clinker-built Viking ship is also light in comparison to its size 
and the number of men it can carry. It can be rowed or sailed, and it can be 
pulled up, because of its shallow draught, on almost any beach. The Viking 
raiders and traders who used these ships sometimes sailed immensely long dis-
tances in them – as far, on some occasions, as the coast of North America. The 
design of the longship, however it evolved, was ideally suited to the demands its 
users made on it. 

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One thing which has been too little noticed, by writers on the history of 
design, is the way in which, as a conscious design movement began, experi-
ence gained in various specialized areas, and especially at sea, began to fertil-
ize the whole design concept. 

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