William Morris' Alphabet

William Morris was a fascinating figure and their entry on Wikipedia is certainly a rabbit hole to lose yourself in one afternoon.

Here is a collection of his individually designed letters (raw link below), artifacts of beauty and craftsmanship that are more-than-worthy inclusions in simple one-pager D&D write-ups. They have been my go-to for years to add that little-something-extra to my documents, bringing with them deeper meaning than just a fantasy/medieval aesthetic, though they do that too and very well.

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What follows is more rant than anything and isn't necessary reading by any stretch of the imagination. This is your tl;dr warning!

Craft is a Gift

I cannot help but feel a kinship with Morris. He was a writer, poet, artist, socialist and in his time fiercely rejected industrially manufactured art and architecture. History does so love to echo and repeat. Though nearly 200 years separate us, it's all too easy to find parallels to my and many others' rejection of the ever-expanding edifice of "AI generated art". It's a new monstrous industrial machine wielded and implemented by the worst inclinations of capitalist doctrine - fed and watered, pruned and fattened on the labor of the poor and the work of billions of creatives and centuries upon centuries of artistry. Morris' own letters are certainly one meal being digested, amalgamated, and regurgitated to produce something somewhere that, by its very nature, is derivative and vacant. William Morris, I think, would be horrified.

I find myself more and more believing, as Morris did, in craftsmanship. Believing in the details that may go unnoticed, indulging in the enjoyment of the people at my table, seeing them notice Morris' letters - a flourish of design in something that could be without it, and finding my heart made full because of it. It's a choice that speaks to caring and thoughtfulness. Proof that the experience we're going to share at the table is one that I respect and take seriously. Maybe it's just a silly little letter, but it's a gift, small as it may be, of a deliberately crafted work.

This too is an echo of past thoughts, that craft and well-thought gifts sidestep, or at least soften, capitalism's commodification of all things under its preview. A gift holds symbolic value beyond a token of exchange as does the idea of an item being a well-crafted product. You need look no further than capitalism's desperation to use language like artisan, handcrafted, homemade, and one-of-a-kind in their marketing materials, co-opting artistry and craftsmanship by attempting to invoke their ghosts through generalized association - sleight-of-hand designed to draw the eye away from the obvious lie as their product claiming uniqueness is nestled snugly next to hundreds of its mass produced peers, devaluing even the idea of true artistry by ubiquity. Gift giving, likewise, is ever being pushed towards monetary considerations, towards the ideology of 1-to-1 value exchange. This, however, corporations seem slightly less apt at pulling off. I can say from personal experience that the simple gift of a meal made for me by the one I love at a particularly debilitating time in my life meant and means more to me than any amount of paper with dead slavers' faces on it. 

The cynical among you will think all of this is an exaggeration. To you I can only hope that the free use of Morris' letters, collected here for your convenience, provides enough cognitive dissidence to drive you to craft something that is beyond commodity for you and yours.

Raw Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1_YwuOPCgwytRswPPoqaMnTai9m9QXfFb?usp=sharing