Where the motifs come from
The death's head moth, memento mori, mourning jewellery. The real history behind the shapes we sell.
Why moths rather than butterflies became the motif of dark decor
Moths outnumber butterflies roughly eight to one, and they are the better shape and the better colour for ornament. The real differences, and why the motif stuck.
2 November 2026Victorian mourning jewellery, and why so much of it was black
Jet, vulcanite, bog oak and black glass: what Victorian mourning jewellery was made of, why black was compulsory, and how to tell the materials apart.
2 November 2026The raven and the crow in art and literature, and how to tell the two birds apart
Size, tail shape, bill and voice separate a raven from a crow. Then the history: Odin's birds, Poe, the Tower legend, and what most bird silhouettes really are.
2 November 2026Spiders and webs as ornament, and how an orb web is really built
The build order, the parts and the silk, plus the four things every drawn spiderweb gets wrong and how to pick a web pattern that is not one of them.
2 November 2026Memento mori: the skull as decoration, from Roman mosaics to Victorian mourning
How the skull went from a Roman dinner party ornament to a Victorian gravestone and then to a shelf. What the phrase means and what the imagery actually did.
2 November 2026Gothic architecture in miniature: arches, tracery and quatrefoils, and why those shapes read as gothic
What a pointed arch is for, how tracery works, the difference between a trefoil and a quatrefoil, and why these shapes still read as gothic on small objects.
2 November 2026The death's head moth, and why it has a skull on its back
The real insect behind the motif: what Acherontia is, why the thorax looks like a skull, the squeak, the honey raids, and how it reached film posters.
2 November 2026