As Superintendent of the first British government-sponsored School of Design, William Dyce oversaw the publication of a textbook in ornamental drawing, intended to improve the quality and taste of British industrial design. This is Dyce's own design for the cover of that book, which was to influence British art education for decades. Here 'Design' is personified as a graceful winged figure ready to inscribe something on a tablet. Though this drawing seems to propose 'Design' as weightless, transcendent thought being giving solid form, Dyce's book itself became notorious for its prosaic, monotonous and mechanical drawing exercises.