Today's blog post is inspired by my visit to the HBLL's Special Collections. At Special Collections, I handled a first edition King James Bible (1611) and a contemporary Geneva Bible. Seeing these books up close, I observed some of the interesting differences in layout and type. The original KJV uses the traditional Gothic type for the scriptural text and the more modern roman type for the summary and insertions. At the beginning of each chapter the first letter is highly decorated - reminiscent of illuminated manuscripts. This mix of the Gothic, roman and illumination style creates a hybrid of the modern and traditional type, which reflects the moderate position of the Anglican religion itself (between Protestant and Catholic). The Geneva on the other hand is half gloss and scriptural text on each page. It reminds me of a Hebrew Bible which includes all the commentary of Rabbis (e.g. Maimonides). This activity today reminded me of the importance of typography in literature - I could grasp a great deal about these different books by simply observing the type and layout of the page.
For a more modern and fun application of typography, my good friend Becky introduced me to the work of Jessica Hirsche. Her website is my new found love and a brilliant distraction from my homework. One of her most fun ideas is that she designs a daily letter. Here are some examples below: 
is it too soon to already change my "B" at the top of my blog??
ReplyDeletei. am. obsessed.
Please tell that, Whether these Alphabets are available as a Single single Letter?
ReplyDelete