Dating back to medieval manuscripts, text has often been highlighted using a particular distinct bright red. The contrast of black and red on a white background is highly visible and striking, and this has been reused many times, in a way which I have not noticed for other colors. I call these uses rubrication and collate examples I have noticed from many time periods. This design pattern does not seem to have a widely-accepted name or be commonly discussed, so I propose extending the term “rubrication” to all instances of this pattern, not merely religious texts. Why this rubrication design pattern? Why red, specifically, and not, say, orange or purple? Is it just a historical accident? Cross-cultural research suggests that for humans, red may be intrinsically more noticeable & has a higher contrast with black, explaining its perennial appeal as a design pattern. Regardless, it is a beautiful design pattern which has been used in many interesting ways over the millennia, and perhaps may inspire the reader.

Red is among the classiest of colors, as a glance through fine book editions reveals. What is snazzier than a good drop cap which has been “rubricated” (sometimes called “printer’s red”)? And yes, rubrication is usually red—hardly ever orange, or green, or purple, or any of the other possible choices.

Rubrication is not merely coloring everything red, but a careful use of some red against mostly black in order to emphasize important elements. We have red letter days for holidays, Christians will subconsciously associate red text with the words of Jesus Christ in typesetting the New Testament, some editions of the Qur’an put Arabic diacritics in red, and maps or charts may highlight key destinations in red while every other location is printed in black.

Further, I noticed that these all seem to use not just red, but almost the same shade of red: a certain bright but medium red, never another shade like a pink or a deep scarlet. That might be an artifact of traditionally using iron gall ink (eventually upgrading to “minium” lead pigments) and then everyone imitating it, but once I began paying attention to red/black combinations, like the famous “law of fives”, I began noticing it everywhere—as Bringhurst remarks, red is “the typographer’s habitual second color”. (One place I haven’t seen rubrication used well is in predominantly black settings, such as the increasingly popular “dark mode”. )