Morris was according to the Mackintosh scholar Thomas Howarth born in Winchester in the South of England, orphaned at an early age and brought up by his aunt Emily Morris who intended him to go into the Church. He preferred an architectural career - first with his uncle Joseph Morris of Reading, then with Martin Brooks of London. At some stage he gained experience in applying his design sense for publication, working with London magazines. His early work as a designer/illustrator for the BLACK AND WHITE magazine (under Marian Spielman) was attractive and suffused with a polite version of a prevailing English Art Nouveau. Gerald Cinamon (The Private Library, Spring 1987 pp.4,5.) reproduces examples of Morris pre-Glasgow rigid and crusty graphic style with the conventional symmetries of framing and lettering of the day. Similar chapter headings, vignettes and decorative panels could be found widely in the London based magazines - the English Illustrated magazine, even in the conservative pages of the Strand magazine.

With a background, then, in architecture and graphic design, he answered an advertisment in the Times in 1893 for the position of Art Director to the old established printing and publishing firm of Blackie's of Glasgow.

The previous year he had married Alice Marsh and was ready for promotion beyond the sub-editor's position with Spielman to this important new job in Glasgow. If as is generally acknowledged, the Glasgow Style emerged into the public gaze in April 1893, Talwin Morris's own arrival in Glasgow (almost to the month) was particularly well times and fortuitous.

The overall responsibility Blackie's gave him (radical for the time - of overseeing a more visually orientated casing of books - was a great opportunity of generating from the very beginning a house style for a wide range of books, destined for a range of markets.

Once in post, he made early contacts with the Glasgow group of artists and designers (particularly Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the Newbery's and the Macdonald family). Such contacts brought them his support and a critical mind. From the outset, one supposes, they encouraged him towards a more taut, simplified and daring version of Art Nouveau, all the more impressive as applied to volume production of small cheap items. Gleeson White in the Studio magazine made it clear that in the heady atmosphere of Celtic design, Morris was very English.

This Website is dedicated to presenting a cross section of his work for Blackie's but also includes designs for applied work - usually destined for his first house at Dunglass and then the celebrated TORWOOD on the hills overlooking the town of Bowling, ten miles to the west of Glasgow.

Within the site there are details of his ingenuity and consistency. There are indications of his overt and covert symbolism. In the sections of lettering and decorative details I seek to demonstrate his originality and capacity as a designer. Examples shown are from my own collection.