Celtic illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages not only give insight into the religious landscape relevant to that time period, but also provide a valuable look at early bookmaking and page layout and design pre-printing press. Several elements of Celtic illuminated manuscripts pioneered the bookmaking process and made an impactful mark on contemporary book design and page layout. These ancient manuscripts such as the Cathach of St. Columba, the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Book of Durrow, and the Book of Kells used ornamentation, illustration, calligraphy, and text layout in innovative ways to enhance readability and content. As Celtic illuminated manuscripts continued to develop, the integration of imagery with text became more and more prominent. With integrating more images into the text, new design issues arose that needed to be addressed. From this need came creative layout design solutions developed by scribes to maintain a consistent line-by-line flow. Among these design solutions were the turn-in-path and the use of hierarchy. To enhance the textual content and readability, Irish scribes utilized display texts, ornamentation and introduced an early concept of interval spacing that led to the spaces between words used in many of today’s active languages. These advances impacted not only the written word, but the visual and active book and reading experience. Their design methods and creative problem solving not only parallel practices used by modern-day designers, but are also valuable to observe for deeper historical context and for inspiration of modern design.