World Building

It’s amazing that by looking back on history and wondering if it had been different I gained so much perspective as to how one small act can change the world. Particularly I thought of one man, Constantine, whose mother was associated with a small upstart of a religion—Christianity. This association ended up changing the world.

Constantine did not seem to start out as a particular devotee of Christianity. In fact, the culture and history laid out before him did not leave the religion with many positive associations. Christians were brutally persecuted, particularly in Rome. One only has to recall Nero to think of the devastation Christians faced. In the year 250 a decree was made by the emperor Dicius proclaiming citizens of the Roman Empire were required to practice sacrifice to the Roman Gods—Christians included. Constantine himself waited until he was well past his prime and major civil wars to declare himself a Christian at age 42.

But you only have to think a moment to realize the repercussions of this small act. Christianity shaped the world, both East and West. The religion was the largest political power from Constantine through most of history. Even the next largest religion, Islam, was not likely to have shown up without the spread of Christianity. Art and language were dependent on it?

Realizing the ridiculously enormous amount of answers to the question “What if Rome didn’t adopt Christianity?” I decided to take a step back. I in now way have a comprehension of what the world would be like without Christianity. However, I do know a few things about humanity and design, stemming from the Roman age, that would have held true for the rest of history.

First, I was inspired by National Geographic and Time magazines. I absolutely love looking through these magazines, something I have done since I was a child. I was always fascinated at how their covers, featuring fantastic design and photography, could sum up some sort of truth about humanity. For example, National Geographic recently featured a story about the disappearance of race, and featured on their cover the face of a beautiful mixed-race girl. It is amazing to me how this picture can reveal so many truths about where humanity currently stands.

Another trend I often see on National Geographic is the forgotten. A forgotten world, an unearthed civilization, a mummy no one knew about. These themes could perhaps trace back to the very Roman ideals of my own world—a respect for history and heritage, illustrated by the Romans through their love of the Greeks.

It was for this reason that I chose to do a magazine cover featuring Constantine’s face. It is a tale of the forgotten, and yet it also illustrates a whole world’s identity, because history had pivoted around this man’s choice to declare and adopt Christianity.

As for the rest of the design in the hypothetical magazine, I thought of our reading. According to the author Julian Bleeker, design tells stories. So I asked myself what kind of a story I was telling through this magazine. First, I decided to make it more clean than modern magazines, keeping in mind the clarity and proportion of Roman art and architecture. Second, I thought of the ways details could communicate all of the repercussions of the loss of Christianity in Rome. This is seen through the image captions and table of contents.

Overall, I found it very interesting to explore both the amazing change one person can have on history, as well as the way humanity will shape itself.