Bible
from Ethiopia
As a self-proclaimed “bibliophile” and lover of all
things historical, this activity was especially exciting for me. To be sure,
the books of the past took great care to draw the reader in and create a
lasting image on their hearts and minds. After viewing the Bible from Ethiopia,
Lisbon Hebrew Bible, Baybars' Qur'an, and the 15th-century church book, it is
evident that books just aren’t made like they used to be. Having always viewed
books with the mind of a reader and historian, I can easily say that assessing
books from a design perspective was a completely new experience altogether. My
initial thought regarding this activity was this: “How can an ancient text
possibly adhere to principles that had not been created yet?” How wrong I was!
Each of the texts I viewed showed clear evidence of the understanding of the
C.R.A.P. principles. I was especially drawn to the Bible from Ethiopia. Along
with being a simply beautiful book, it employs each of the four design
principles: Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, and Proximity.
Contrast:
The Ethiopian Bible’s understanding of the principle
of Contrast was one of the main reasons for my choosing to analyze this text.
It features bright, bold colors that is both eye-catching and aesthetically
pleasing. Intense blues, greens, yellows, oranges, and reds set against the
white background effectively tell the intended story. There also various
contrasting shapes found throughout the text, namely circles, squares, and
crosses. These contrasting shapes help are designed to enhance the message
being conveyed in the text. Also, while the text uses black lettering, there
are splashes of red and blue writing throughout, creating contrast and drawing
the reader’s attention to a specific section. The dark lettering over the white
background allows the reader to easily see/read the text.
Repetition:
The use of repetition is key to the telling of the
story in the Bible from Ethiopia. Certain colors (red, blue, yellow, green, and
orange) are repeated throughout the images in the text. Even without the being
able to read the language, the repetition of this color palette creates a story
by itself. There are also several images/pictures that repeat in the Bible from
Ethiopia. Images of birds are a constant on the pages, clearly serving as an
important symbol to this culture. Next, the text uses repeated borders for the
images and text, making the book more uniform. The reader can likewise see a
repetition of a yellow, halo-like circle surrounding the heads of people in the
images. The text also uses repetition in red, blue and black lettering
throughout the book. On several pages, there is a repetition of a cross image.
Also, the reader can see the repeated use of the knotted curtain among the
images in this book.
Alignment:
The alignment within the book was the most
surprising to me. I thought this principle would be the hardest to find;
however, the writer clearly had a strong understanding of eye’s need to find
uniformity in alignment. Whether the writing was in one or two columns, the
text is evenly distributed between the margins, creating alignment on the left
and right sides of the text. Likewise, when the text is separated into two
columns, they are perfectly aligned across the top and bottom of the page.
Similarly, the red text within two columns of writing is equally aligned to the
red text on the other side. Also, when there are two images located on
side-by-side pages, those are both centered and aligned to the partner image.
Interestingly, the reader can also see amazing alignment within the images
themselves. For example, the feet of the people of often exactly uniform and
aligned to one another.
Proximity:
As I cannot read the text to determine the story
being convey, proximity among the images is key to understanding what is
happening in the text. Within the images, certain individuals are located in
close proximity to others, denoting important relationships among the people.
For example, it is easy to determine the three wise men and Jesus’s disciples
due to their close proximity to one another. Proximity is also evident when
examining the picture and their captions. Without understanding the language, we
are able to see that there is a description about the image nearby.
