Killian Coen

Designing with Text

I must admit, as a fan of the words in both verse and song, one of the most difficult
aspects of this assignment was simply picking a song or poem to design. As a big fan of very old
literature, it seemed logical to start there. This led me to one of my favorite Anglo-Saxon poems;
the epic saga of Beowulf.
When studying such works, it is often the case that the primary source one studies
consists of a translation of the story in the actual Old English along with a version in Modern
English. In good versions of the book, these translations appear next to eachother, so I based my
project off of this. I selected only the first 21 lines, which is the introduction to the poem. One of
the things I focused on most was historical accuracy in terms of the typeset; I wanted the Old
English version to be as close as it could to the style the scribes of the time would have used to
first write the story down. After quite some searching, I was able to track down a font that is
actually based off of the Insular Miniscule script that was first used to record Beowulf. The
fonts designer, Jack Kilmon, said that he based his design directly off mid-seventh century texts
just like Beowulf. My next priority after the font was giving the Old English side the weight that
texts of the time had. This involved giving the first letter a period-appropriate drop-cap, as well
as slightly altering the size and spacing of the characters slightly at random intervals, hopefully
giving it more of a hand-scribed feel. Lastly, in service to the original, I left the line structure of
the poem nearly unaltered, preserving the original rhythm of the piece.

The next half, or the Modern English half, had completely different design priorities.
Here, my primary concern was readability. As such, I went with Helvetica and left the text in
standard weight in standard 12-point size. I also went with a translation that left a good amount
of the Old English phrases in it, as this reflects a more accurate translation of the piece in my
mind. In order to make it come across easier however, I broke up the stanzas into forms that will
read easier for a modern audience using line breaks. I also made sure that the newly broken up
stanzas synced up with the Old English; that way, a reader could test their translation skills by
trying to figure out which Modern English words match the Old English ones by matching it up
next to each other line-by-line.
The last element of my design, the boxes around the text, were used mostly because there
was no way to get the two versions of the text to appear side-by-side in Word without creating
some sort of textbox. In light of this, I used the boxes to visually delineate the two version of the
poem, thus further aiding in readability. In order to better serve this purpose, as well as give the
piece a more Anglo-Saxon feel without using images, the boxes were also made with heavy
weight and feature dark grey lines at the top and bottom of each box.

Hwt, we gardena in geardagum,

eodcyninga rym gefrunon,
hu a elingas ellen fremedon!
oft Scyld Scefing sceaena reatum,
monegum mgum meodosetla ofteah,
egsode eorlas, syanrest wear
feasceaft funden; he s frofre gebad,
weox under wolcnum weormyndum ah,
o t him ghwylc ymbsittendra
ofer hronrade hyran scolde,
gomban gyldan; t ws god cyning!
m eafera ws fter cenned
geong in geardum, one God sende
folce to frofre; fyrenearfe ongeat,
e hie r drugon aldorlease
lange hwile; him s Liffrea,
wuldres Wealdend woroldare forgeaf,
Beowulf ws breme-bld wide sprangScyldes eafera Scedelandum in.
Swa sceal geong guma gode gewyrcean.

Lo, praise of the prowess of people-kings of

spear-armed Danes, in days long sped, we
have heard, and what honor the athelings
won!
Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes,
from many a tribe, the mead-bench tore,
awing the earls. Since erst he lay friendless, a
foundling, fate repaid him:
for he waxed under welkin, in wealth he
throve, till before him the folk, both far and
near, who house by the whale-path, heard his
mandate, gave him gifts:
a good king he!
To him an heir was afterward born, a son in
his halls, whom heaven sent to favor the folk,
feeling their woe that erst they had lacked an
earl for leader so long a while; the Lord
endowed him, the Wielder of Wonder, with
worlds renown.
Famed was this Beowulf: far flew the boast of
him, son of Scyld, in the Scandian lands.