The Word Made Clear
When someone labours over how Scripture looks on the page, they join an old and quiet work: helping people read.
Klaus Krogh died on October 6, at the age of 74. He cofounded the design company 2K/Denmark and spent more than four decades making Bibles that were both beautiful and easy to read. His typefaces now appear in Bibles around the world.
It is worth sitting with that. Most of us never think about the shape of the letters we read. We think only about the words. That is the point. Good design disappears, and the reader is left alone with the text.
There is scriptural precedent for this care. In Nehemiah, after the exile, the people gather to hear the Law read aloud. "They read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people understood what was being read" (Nehemiah 8:8). Clarity was treated as a duty.
The psalmist writes, "Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path" (Psalm 119:105). A lamp is only useful if you can see by it. To make the page clearer, the type kinder, the reading easier for tired eyes, is a small way of tending that light.
Today, read a passage slowly. Notice not only what it says, but that you can read it at all.
Sources
- Died: Klaus Krogh, Pioneer in Bible Design and Accessibility — Christianity Today
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