Hermeneutics and translations

One of the tasks for Contextual studies is going to be to annotate a text that you have read. The process of annotating is called hermeneutics and originates with the practice of annotating Biblical texts. If you have an old copy of the Bible you may have one that uses complex page layout to enable previous commentaries to be read alongside the actual text. There was another issue and that was that the Bible wasn’t written in English and as the literal ‘Word of God’ it was often offered with the original Hebrew text alongside the translation. Therefore annotations and translations were often seen together and had to be given clear typographical identities and spaces within which to operate. The hierarchy also has to be easily understood by the reader, they must not mistake the commentary for the original.







In these images above you can see the way the page designers are starting to provide spaces for the translations and annotations. However, this is a very old problem and the Egyptians were faced with a similar translation problem when the Greek language started to become the lingua franca for the Mediterranean world. The Rosetta Stone, (below) being a wonderful example.



So how does this relate to what you are doing as designers and my role as an interrogator? Well I would suggest that a key element of your job as a designer is to be a sensitive translator. You are often taking information from one context and translating it into another. What do you think of the images below? Are they good or bad translations or interpretations when we think of choice of font as reflection of image concept? The designer is obviously trying to find a font that reflects the suggested time period the image comes from. Could we reverse the process?



In fact the translation itself can be the idea. What about this?



Hipgnosis, 1978


This more conceptual approach is where I think Contextual studies and design start working together. By following the implications of what we are trying to think about a design occurs.
So my brief to you would be to find a way of setting out an annotation that not only answered a contextual studies annotation task but answered a wider/deeper typographic problem of translation. This could for instance be a way of thinking about semiotics. Denotation and conotation being simply first and second order translations.