From whatever source, however, the carpet manufacturer obtains his ideas for a design, it is by his expert staff, or by a professional carpet designer, that the ideas must be reduced to a practical form. And the technical preparation of designs for carpets is as full of difficulty as it is of interest. As has been indicated, the various makes of carpet differ from each other in many respects, including that of pitch, or number of threads or rows per inch. They all, however, have this in common, that, anatomically so to speak, as regards design, they are reducible to squares of colour. For this reason, ruled or point paper is always employed in the preparation of the design, and preferably paper ruled so as to represent the full size of the woven fabric. The designer, therefore, may not represent the curved outline of a leaf, for instance, with a bold sweep of his brush, but must paint it carefully, square by square, leaving actually an outline, which is more or less jagged according to the coarseness or fineness of the pitch. Here, at once we recognise a limitation which is apt to be irksome to the untrained designer of carpets. And what applies to form applies also to colour. There is no imperceptible graduation of shade to be achieved. Each particular square has to be of one colour and no more. Again, the designer must consider the number of colours he is allowed to employ, be they two or a hundred; and must know whether they can be used anywhere or only in restricted places in the pattern. Then there is the consideration of the repeat, with the mysteries of the straight match, reverse, drop and half drop; of the width of the fabric, body and border; and of the various adjustments of design required for carpets of different sizes, whether breadth goods, Chlidema squares, medallions, or seamless. Last, there is the real artistic imagination that is required; the art of seeing from one repeat how a complete carpet will look, of estimating the difference in appearance between the flat colour on the paper and the richness of the wool; of the variation in value of the same shade in collocation with this or with that. From the above it will be seen that the successful carpet designer has to be both craftsman and artist. The finished coloured design passes into the hands of the colourist, who, whatever be the nature of the subsequent manufacturing process, will have the responsibility of selecting the coloured yarns to go into the fabric. These will normally, in the first instance, follow the main lines of the shades of the design paper. Then the travellers’ samples are made; and in some fabrics even, where pattern making is not practicable, whole carpets or sets of carpets are produced. Some idea can thus be obtained of the expenses to which carpet manufacturers are put in the preparation of new designs and colourings (which, in pre-war times, used to be done annually, and even more often) before a yard of carpet is sold to recoup them.