Prof. M. Brown | COMD1112 - OL15 | Fall 2020
Please take about 20 minutes to turn the pages of the world Famous Gutenberg Bible.
Questions for Discussion: What did you notice about the pages I showed you of the Gutenberg Bible? Are there visual elements you recognize in today’s design? Then, quickly list those similarities. And then list differences you notice in the bible’s pages that you don’t recognize or understand.
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After looking at some of the pages of the Gutenberg Bible I noticed drop caps, a serif font, justified margins and decorations around the boarder of the text. All of these things are used in every day text. However in the modern century bible the texts are more plain and mostly san serif fonts are used. I also noticed the text seems to be written in another language. Over all this text was made in a way that it is easy to read and has nice design aspects .
I noticed that the gutenberg bible was in a blackletter font, it had very wide margins, and it was very uniform. Along with being uniform, the pages have an ornate and beautiful drawings on them (I know theres a better word for it but I can’t think of it right now). I recognize drop caps from most of print media.
I noticed that almost all are categorized in order and has a sort of display and cursive typeface throughout the bible. The ones I dont personally reconize is the words in red and their understanding of why they highlighted these specific words.
The pages on the Gutenberg bible are a different color than the books thats printed in modern day. The decorations placed are a bit different as well. There is some decorations on the Gutenberg bible that clashes with the text. In modern day decorations placed on most books are uniformed.
The Gutenberg bible text is uniformed into columns which is still commonly used today.
After looking through the pages shown, I noticed a high attention to detail used by the scribes and the printing press itself. It looks as if gold paint was used for some of the lettering. Finally, I noticed that the letters are tightly packed together, possibly because paper was not abundant.
The first thing that stood out to me was that each page had two even columns with neat margins. The paragraph styles are justified and the letters are properly tracked/kerned in an aesthetically pleasing and tidy manner. There are also graphical flairs like drop caps and pops of color, as well as ornate drawings used frequently to break up the space and bring life to the book. It’s surprising that the Gutenberg Bible is almost 600 years old because these qualities look very familiar to me, since magazines and textbooks are typed almost exactly the same way. This must mean that it’s an effective style of printing large quantities of text. The Gutenberg Bible even has type in the header of the page, however, the there aren’t any numbered pages.
Some similarities I noticed compared to today’s magazines or even some books, are the 2 columns and large margins around all sides. The typography used is familiar but I don’t see it being used very often in today’s more common typefaces. The color of the pages look sort of worn down and don’t compare to the clean white pages we see today. Although, some books today do use similar colored pages as seen in the Bible to give a sort of old or worn out feel. Another thing I noticed is the occasional use of color in the text probably used to keep the readers attention which I do see today, more so in magazines rather than books.
I’ve seen most magazines start off their articles with a large letters to begin their paragraphs. The Gutenberg Bible does the same thing but with more detail and thought put into it like an illustration. In fact, the majority of the page has illustration, whether it be the letters that start the paragraphs or the borders around the text. Modern magazines tend to be more simplistic with their layout with just text, an image, and a background.
It seems like some of the page isn’t used by design choice which few authors do, but having the beginning letter of the first word in a paragraph be so big to the point where that’s the only recognizable letter through the scan I can see is something that isn’t usually what people do nowadays. Usually people would write in something clear like Helvetica so anyone can read it.
The Gutenburg Bible had large margins, tightly kerned type, and a designed decorative letter, with vines coming out of it. One similarity I see with this and current design, is the amount of page usage, vertically, in certain books. One thing I don’t usually see now, at least too often, is decorative letters within pages or books. But it does look pretty similar to the way some books are formatted.
I noticed that the paragraphs of Gutenberg Bible are justifyed, and it also uses lupper and lowercase. These are similar to the current books. It is readable, and legible.
When looking at the Gutenberg bible, I was able to see the same types of use in fonts that we use now a days. They also use designs that we would come up with. These are designs I can see in cover books or or the inside of them.
Probably indicative of the era, but the type on the Gutenberg bible seem elaborate and decadent. The dropcaps are especially prominent. The columns are narrow block . Some visual elements are recognizable in today’s style of text. Some if not most of the text are in an unrecognizable foreign language.
I noticed that some of the pages of the Gutenberg Bible either has 1 or 2 letters that are very huge, look really fancy and stand out the most. I also noticed the the pages use floral designs so I wonder if that symbolizes something. I don’t recognize any visual elements in those pictures that are used today. The bible itself does have huge letters but they don’t really stand out like the letters in the Gutenberg bible.
When I looked at the Gutenberg Bible, I noticed that it was in a Gothic font. Gothic font is not used this way anymore, as it may be difficult for people to read. Also, the tracking of the letters is negative, meaning the letters are very close to each other. This also makes it a bit difficult to read.
As I was looking through the Gutenberg Bible, I noticed that this type of font isnt seen a lot in today’s society. This type of lettering complimetns the precision of a pen. It shows hand written letterform used in religious writing.