Jones advised on the foundation collections for the South Kensington museum, and formulated decorative arts principles which became teaching frameworks for the Government School of Design, then at Marlborough House.

[5] He travelled first to Italy and then to Greece where he met the young French architect Jules Goury [fr] (1803–1834), who was assisting Gottfried Semper (1803–1879) with his radical studies of the polychromy of Ancient Greek buildings.

His travelling companion, Jules Goury, had recently been working with Gottfried Semper on his analysis of the polychromy of Ancient Greek buildings, and this was very likely a key factor in Jones embarking on such a scientific and detailed appraisal of the decoration at the Alhambra.

Goury died of cholera – at the age of 31 – during their six-month stay at the Alhambra, and Jones returned to London determined to publish the results of their studies.

After, and possibly during, the long gestation period for Alhambra, Jones used his printing press to enter the lucrative market for illustrated and illuminated gift books which were becoming increasingly popular with the Victorian middle class.

From the mid-1840s until the end of his life, some 30 years later, Jones designed a wide variety of products for De La Rue including playing cards, menus, biscuit-tin wrappers, postage stamps, chessboards, endpapers, scrap albums and diaries.

He was responsible for not only the decoration of Joseph Paxton's gigantic cast iron and glass palace, but also for the arrangement of the exhibits within, and this was the architectural project which first brought Jones to the wider public's attention.

[7] Both Jones and Cole were concerned that these collections would encourage students to simply copy examples of ornament, rather than be inspired to examine the underlying decorative principles behind the objects.

These two factors would undoubtedly have been significant catalysts in motivating Jones to publish, in 1856, what is possibly his longest-lasting legacy: his seminal design sourcebook, The Grammar of Ornament.

Jones expanded his propositions to create 37 "general principles in the arrangement of form and colour in architecture and the decorative arts" which became the preface to the 20 chapters of The Grammar of Ornament.

[8] Christopher Dresser, Jones's best known protégé, contributed one of the plates in this final chapter, and he was concurrently presenting theories on natural-form ornament in his famous botanical lectures at the Government School of Design in the mid-1850s.

[citation needed] Jones was able to disseminate his theories on pattern and ornament through his work for several of the key manufacturers of the period, thus facilitating public consumption of his decorative visions in a number of diverse contexts.

He designed wallpapers for several firms from the 1840s until the 1870s including Townsend and Parker, Trumble & Sons and Jeffrey & Co. Jones was also prolific in the field of textiles – designing silks for Warner, Sillett & Ramm and carpets for Brinton and James Templeton & Co. Jones also immersed himself in a number of decorative schemes for domestic interiors, most notably working in collaboration with the London firm Jackson & Graham to produce furniture and other fittings.

Jones was responsible for the interior decoration, but would most probably have also contributed to the design of the exterior which exhibits brick polychromy and architectural details with Byzantine and Islamic influences.

By the early twentieth century, the Oriental Courts were closed, but 1980s conservation work showed that much of Jones's decoration survives beneath the modern paintwork.