Bible Design and Binding

More Flipback Love

After Jongbloed managing director Hugo van Woerden gave me a stack of dwarsligger/transetto/flipbacks last month, I mentioned my thrill at discovering John le Carre's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy in the new format. The question you have to ask, when faced with such a startling departure from the traditional book concept, is whether it really works. Can you read a whole book this way, or is it just a clever gimmick? Over at my other blog, I answer the question based on my experience of the past couple of weeks. If you're interested, check it out: 

A Pocket Book That Really Fits

While you're there, you can also find out why I hate the new Kindle ads and why some bookcases from the 60s have me sorting through my collection of books.

The Pocket Canon Concept Revisited

Last week's piece about Chad Whitacre's edition of the gospels has me thinking about my favorite "portion" editions. The two that come to mind are pocket-sized, single column text settings perfect in every way for serious reading. Unfortunately they are also incomplete realizations of the concept.

First, there's the ultimate example, the Pocket Canon. Then there's Crossway's similarly-sized edition of the Gospel of John. (I have a copy of the Psalms, too, but I can't seem to locate it!) 

I call them incomplete realizations because there aren't editions available for every book of the Bible. You can go much farther with the Pocket Canon, but ultimately you run out of booklets. Since these little editions seem like a perfect way to read through the Bible, I wish someone would run with the idea and do all sixty-six books. 

What there is of them, however, is magnificent:

The Pocket Canon is slightly smaller than the Gospel of John, roughly the same size as the Apica CD10 notebook I was praising last week. I could see slipping Pocket Canon and Apica into the same pocket with ease, toting them around as I read and take notes on whichever book I happen to be on. These little volumes seem especially well suited to group book studies. You'd get each member a copy, just as you would in any book group, and voila!

There is, of course, nothing new under the sun. In 1917, as American doughboys shipped off to the trenches, the American Bible Society sent these tiny Army and Navy Editions along with them. I happen to have St. John and Proverbs, perfectly sized to slip into a soldier's tunic pocket. They're very thin, staple-bound with what appears to be a paper-backed linen cover. The only downside to this kind of portability it that I doubt one of these could stop a Mauser bullet. 

Unlike the Pocket Canon, which also uses the KJV, the text inside is not paragraphed. There is no celebrity introduction in front, either. For such a small edition I find the type quite readable. 

Admittedly, I have a soft spot for little booklets like this. I think Penguin 60s are the best thing ever, for example, and I have enough of them to prove it:

To me, the Pocket Canon illustrates that with a little thought and good design, a volume that's cheaply produced can also be a thing of beauty -- and great utility. Perhaps some enterprising publisher will catch the bug and put out an entire pocket-sized canon. As Chad Whitacre demonstrates, the tools are readily available to us now. Maybe we should just make our own!

Slipcase Nostalgia

I might be shallow enough to author a blog about the design and manufacture of Bibles (as opposed to the content within), but even I don't waste much time on the packaging they come in. While I like to find vintage Bibles still in the box, that has more to do with the information printed on the box than any quality in the packaging itself. Sometimes publishers stick their high-end editions in fussy packaging -- clamshell boxes with magnetized flaps, sometimes with synthetic leather upholstery to boot. To be honest, it seems like a waste to me. Something simple and sturdy to protect the contents is all I require, like the simple blue box that R. L. Allan uses. 

There is, however, an exception, one example of nice packaging I dearly miss: the Cambridge slipcase. 

Older Cambridge editions come in a simple box, but somewhere along the line -- I'm guessing during the 1980s or 90s -- the two-part slipcase was introduced. The tan interior slip held the Bible, then fitted into the slightly wider exterior slip, which was printed with a spired university scene. The attraction wasn't the Brideshead-style nostalgia the image evoked. It was the practical nature of the slipcase itself. As the photo illustrates, a softcover Bible enclosed in its slipcase can stand upright on a shelf like any other book. That, my friends, is a real plus.

Nowadays Cambridge Bibles (like all the rest) are either in the box or out. If they're in, they might be better protected, but you can't actually see them. With the slipcased editions, you can pluck them right off the shelf for use, then tuck them right back. Some editions, such as the red NIV pictured at the top of the stack, only came with an outer slipcase, which worked just as well.

Of course, just because your Bible didn't come with a slipcase doesn't mean you can't have one. If you're handy, here's a tutorial on how to make your own:

Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em?

There are few people more despised and reviled in today's culture than the Cigarette Smoker. To the moralist, he is (to paraphrase King James -- the monarch, not the translation) loathsome to the eye and hateful to the nose, belching the smoke of the bottomless pit. To the health-conscious, he poisons both himself and those around him before becoming a burden to the state. 

And yet, if you love your Bible, you owe him a debt of gratitude. 

Above: C. S. Lewis, doing his bit for the cause.

Strange as it sounds, in one of the great ironies of modern times, there are just two segments of society that rely on the ready availablilty of super-thin paper: Bible readers and cigarette smokers. And guess which ones are in the majority? Apparently those of us who purchase Bibles really need the cigarette smokers to stick around. As Cambridge's Bob Groser shared with me last month, if it weren't for the demand for cigarette paper, there's a good chance the mills producing Bible paper would go out of business. At the very least, costs would go up substantially. 

"But," I objected, "the paper's not the same, is it?" He answered with an equivocal shrug, as if to say it is, more or less. 

I can imagine this odd fact inspiring a variety of reactions. Zealous anti-smokers will no doubt worry that their Bibles are tainted by the association, and perhaps will be more welcoming of the advent of e-Bibles as a result. A few contrarians might pick up a pack of Marlboros and emulate the example of C. S. Lewis in support of ecclesiastical publishing. For the rest of us, I suppose it's just a reminder of what an interesting and unexpected world we happen to live in. 

Minion, Ruby, Brevier, Long Primer and More

Where do the exotic-sounding names for some classic Bible editions come from? What's so long about the Long Primer, for example, and what makes the Brevier more brev than any other layout? Why is the Ruby a ruby instead of a pearl? Is the Pitt Minion intended only for the henchmen of a certain Mr. Pitt? The solution to these mysteries can be found by consulting The Handy Book of Artisitc Printing.

It seems the names have to do with typefaces -- not the style of the type, but rather its height. Back in the days of metal type, there was an understandable lack of uniformity from press to press. This changed when the point system was introduced. Suddenly the size and height of type could be standardized for consistency no matter where a book was printed. And the sizes came with nifty names, like so:

So Oxford would have christened its new edition of the KJV the Long Primer in reference to the size of type within. If you wanted a nice, large, readble font, the Long Primer was for you. If you could manage smaller type, perhaps you would prefer the Brevier, or even a tiny Nonpareil. This chart gives an idea of what the names denoted in terms of point size:

So the Long Primer would have 10 pt. type, the Brevier 8 pt., and the Ruby a miniscule 3.5 pt. The Minion of Pitt Minion fame would clock in at 7 pt. (the Pitt in Pitt Minion is a reference to a building at Cambridge, not a type size). Those of you longing for large print editions might want to hunt for the Great Primer (18 pt.) or perhaps the splendidly named Paragon (20 pt.), though I suspect no such Bibles were ever printed. 

The Handy Book of Artistic Printing is a great resource for those of you who've sipped the letterpress Kool-Aid recently, as I have. Full of elaborate examples of nineteenth century decorative printing and arcane facts about the mysteries of the press, it's a nice way to while away the hours. Not to mention, you can menace friends and family with the thought that, to be considered truly canonical, shouldn't the Bible be printed in 44 pt. "Canon" type?

 

The Gospels, edited by Chad Whitacre

When I talk with Bible teachers, particularly those who focus on working through the text with their students (as opposed to a more topical approach), I am always struck by how many of them take advantage of desktop publishing software and readily available texts online to create customized layouts for class. It's nice to have a handout featuring just the section under consideration, single-colum, paragraphed, in 12 pt. type, perhaps even double-spaced, something students won't think twice about marking up during discussion. And of course it's so easy.

A bit more challenging is to create an entire Bible to your own specs. It can be done, of course. The tools are readily available. But most of us underestimate what a complicated task designing the Bible really is. Most who start down the path eventually give up. After all, the readily-available texts online aren't usually formatted for print. Do you take the time to re-format them, or do you copy and paste? (If you choose the latter, you might as well not bother.) Then there's the whole problem of good design. Knowing how to run the software is one thing; knowing how to design a thousand pages of text is another.

Every so often, I hear from someone who has persevered and created their own layout of the Bible or a portion of it. These efforts, while fine for personal use, don't often impress me from the standpoint of classic design. Let me introduce you to an exception to the rule, The Gospels, edited by Chad Whitacre. 

As he explains in the preface (which is available at the link above) Chad started with the four gospels from the World English Bible, a revision of the ASV, which is available at ebible.org, then made some Cormac McCarthy-inspired tweaks to the punctuation -- removing quotation marks and converting semicolons to commas. Guided by the single column NEB layout, he removed chapter and verse numbers to the margin, but instead of the outer margin he chose the inner one. He also divided the gospels internally into a total of thirty-four sections designed to emulate novel-style chapter breaks, making it easier to divide the readings in a group setting. When in doubt, he referred to Robert Bringhurst's The Elements of Typographic Style, which never disappoints.

To get a flavor for the result, you can follow the link to Chad's site and download a free PDF of the resulting layout. He has also made it available in two editions printed on demand by Lulu, a softcover and a hardback.

The Bible is an anthology of books, and while traditionally we tend to bind it under one cover -- a feat aided by small type and ultra-thin paper -- there is something to be said for breaking out specific portions. The idea of a pocket New Testament springs from this logic, as do multi-volume editions of the Bible, not to mention the ultimate portable single-column KJV, the Pocket Canon.

By narrowing in on the gospels, Chad has freed himself from the kind of trade-offs that haunt designers of complete Bibles. He can create an elegant page layout without having to worry how many extra sheets will be required to print the spacious, uncramped volume. He can also use the standard paper options available through on-demand printing. Both of the Lulu volumes are comparable in binding quality to anything you'd find at the bookstore. Ghosting? Not a problem with this paper. And you can write on it with any instrument you like. I used rollerballs and a foutain pen. Neither bled or showed through on the reverse. There you go.

As you flip through the Whitacre Gospels (for lack of a better title), you're stuck by how novel-like the layout is. If it weren't for those numbers along the inner margin, you could be reading pretty much anything. Which is the point. Chad's experience leading Bible studies plays a factor in the choices he makes. Having used The Books of the Bible, he appreciates the value to readers of an uncluttered experience of the text. We're accustomed to the books we read looking a certain way, and when they do, we don't really notice what they look like. The painstaking design choices disappear, leaving us alone with the text. But in a group setting, you want everyone to be able to find the right spot in the text, so Chad steps back from TBOTB's approach to chapter and verse numbering to adopt the NEB's method. Whether you agree or not with the choices he's made, it becomes clear that Chad has given each one some thought. 

One of the most interesting features Chad has introduced is "scrolling." Instead of placing book, chapter, and verse information in the page header, each of the four gospels has a black bar on the side of the page. Sideways on, you can tell immediately where each book begins and ends. Next to the bars, you'll find the chapter numbers for the page spread. By flipping through the black bars, you can quickly locate the chapter you want in the book you want. Then you use the numbering down the inner margin to zero in on particular verses. Although I was initially skeptical, this method actually works quite well.

Above, you can see the pages fanned out to reveal the chapter numbers. Here's a video from Chad's site in which he demonstrates how scrolling works:

The 6x9 page size is larger than that of the Cambridge Clarion I wrote about yesterday. The text column is also slightly wider at 3.75 inches. The typeface is Adobe Caslon Pro. I'm guessing the size is 10 pt., though it could be 9.5 or 9. Compared to the Pitt Minion, below, which is typical of the sort of handy edition we're likely to carry around, you can see that the Whitacre Gospels are much roomier and lend themselves better to easy reading.

That's the trade-off question again. The Pitt Minion is slim and small and contains the entire Bible, whereas this volume is slim and large and contains only the gospels. If you happen to be reading the gospels, though, you'd clearly have an easier time with the specialized edition.

In short, Chad has produced a splendid edition of the gospels based on a sound design philosophy optimized for reading and group study/discussion. He is making the result of his efforts available free as a PDF. If you like what you see, I would encourage you to support the effort by picking up a hard copy. You'll be surprised how readable this format is. Chad is also open to feedback, and would love to hear from publishers and other industry types who might be interested in helping take the project further. 

(Updated) To order the latest edition, follow the link:

The Gospels, edited by Chad Whitacre

Cambridge Clarion KJV in Black Goatskin

As I mentioned yesterday, I was in Atlanta last month at ICRS to promote my new book, Pattern of Wounds. I signed more copies in forty-five minutes than I've probably signed in the rest of my writing career combined. But that wasn't the highlight of my day. Once the autographing ended, it was time to track down two people I've been anxious to meet for ... well, for longer than I even knew they existed. Chris Wright, director of Bibles at Cambridge University Press, and Bob Groser his right-hand man, carved out an hour from their busy schedule that turned into nearly two hours. I had the time of my life talking all things Bible. 

And then it appeared. The new Cambridge Clarion. Chris produced the black box, sliding it across the table toward me. It was the only copy they had, though they expected a couple more to arrive the next day. In other words, the Clarion was hot off the presses. I opened the box and a golden light shone from within. Angels sang loud hosannas. And I was tempted by the utterly impious urge to take the Clarion and run! 

You have to understand, I have been dreaming about a Bible like this for a long time. A classically -proportioned single column text setting with elegant, timeless typography in a hand-sized form factor, beautifully printed and bound. People e-mail me all the time asking where to buy such a Bible and I'm forced to reply, "Well ... you can't." 

Well ... you can now. 

Chris and Bob must have read my mind, or maybe they were tipped off by the frenzy of iPhone photos I started snapping. "Don't look now," I said as I twisted the only Clarion in existence into a yoga ball. I was giddy and I didn't want to part with the thing. Even though I knew the quality of the photos wouldn't be very good, I needed something to prove that the Clarion existed, something I could look at afterward to remember fondly. After awhile, Chris glanced at Bob and some non-verbal communication ensued. The end result was, early the next morning, I met Bob in the lobby of my hotel and received one of the incoming Clarions to take with me. That's the one I'm sharing with you.

Think of this as an extended first look. I hope to show you more of the Clarion, the different binding options, in the future, but for now, let's take a look at what I consider to be an utterly successful single column text setting!

Layout

From the page spreads I'd seen in advance, I already suspected that the Clarion layout was a winner. The proportions looked right, the font readable, the page clean and thoughtful. But there's only so much you can surmise from a PDF. Until the physical object is in hand, you can't really tell. My first thought in handling the Clarion was: "This feels so right." Then I was amazed at the size. I was expecting a much larger volume, a big, thick edition. In the past, I've written about the trade-offs required when you print a lot of words in a single column format. If you refuse to pack too many words on each line, then you end up with more and more pages -- more and more bulk. Yet the Clarion doesn't feel like a compromise. I was expecting to have to put up with some inconvenience to enjoy a proper single column setting. That's not how it is at all.

According to Chris, a lot of effort went into the details, tweaking the proportions until everything worked together. Knowing that a line should not run longer that approximately 65 characters (a more precise measurement than word count), the column width and height were balanced with the type size in mind. "Guess the type size," Chris said. Put on the spot, I finally went with 10 pt. Wrong. The Clarion is set in 8.75 pt. Lexicon No. 1, with adequate leading (i.e., line spacing) for it to read larger. I've been using the Pitt Minion with its 6.75 pt. Lexicon type, so jumping up 2 pt. seemed like absolute luxury. 

The Clarion is printed with painstaking attention to detail by Jongbloed in the Netherlands. Knowing how sensitive readers can be to "ghosting" on super thin Bible paper, Chris and Bob pointed out how careful the printers had been to ensure proper alignment of the page, so that printed lines back one another. When you hold out a page, the lines printed on the reverse overlap precisely with the lines printed on front. This helps to minimize ghosting. "You'll still see it," Chris was quick to point out, "particularly in the poetry sections," but that old world printing know-how really makes a difference.

As I've mentioned in the past, one of the advantages of single column settings is the space they afford to poetry. The jagged, abrupt line breaks forced by the narrowness of a double column layout virtually disappear, enhancing the aesthetic appearance of the text. Psalm 60 in the Clarion is a wonderful example:

I'd like to think, too, that rendering a translation like the KJV, which is less accessible linguistically to modern readers, in a more accessible, familiar layout will improve readability. So much depends on hearing the ebb and flow of the language in one's mind, a process the traditional verse-by-verse dice-up mitigates against, at least for readers who haven't internalized the needed compensating measures. Perhaps the Clarion hints at the future of the KJV? I'd like to think that, too. It is certainly a handy volume to take with you into bucolic settings for extended reading:

Comparisons
The Clarion is 7.5 inches tall, 5.5 inches across, and about 1.75 inches thick. That's the scale of a fat trade paperback novel. Compact and slightly hefty, the Clarion fits the hand well. 

The single column setting I use most often is my Allan's-bound ESV Personal Size Reference. The Clarion is a bit shorter and thicker than the PSR, but they are more or less comparable. They're both single column reference editions, too, so they make for good comparisons. For the record, despite the shortcomings of the layout, I really like the PSR and have recommended it often. But I think the Clarion demonstrates why a classic, less-is-more approach to design wins out in the end.

The two biggest complaints about the PSR are the small type size (7.4 pt.) and the width of the column, which packs too many words on each line relative to the type size. The Clarion increases the type size and line spacing while featuring a roughly comparable column width. The Clarion's column measures 3.5 inches across while the PSR is a hair wider. The result of these improved proportions is a dramatic increase in readability. (And about a half inch of additional thickness, for those who insist on slimlining.)

Of course, the obvious comparison to make would be to the classic NEB single column setting. First, let's take a look at the hardback NEB with Apocrypha, which is understandably thicker than the Clarion, which does not include the apocryphal books. 

Compared to this NEB, the Clarion's shorter, narrower column strikes me as more readable. In addition, the absence of section headings lends the Clarion a cleaner look. While the NEB moves chapter and verse numbers to the margin, the Clarion keeps them in the text. In theory, the NEB's approach offers a less cluttered, less mediated experience of the text ... however, I've obviously made the mental adjustment necessary to ignore the interior numbering, because in practice I prefer having them in the text instead of outside. When they're out on the margin, that's where my eye goes instinctively, so they end up calling more attention to themselves than they should. Still, I can go either way. It's a minor point.

Thanks to the generosity of a reader, I have a couple of leather-bound NEBs to use for comparison purposes, too. This one is an Oxford edition without apocrypha, so the form factor is closer to that of the Clarion -- just a bit taller and slimmer.

Here's where things get interesting. The NEB column is nearly four inches wide, like the PSR a bit wider than the type size will support. As a result, I found myself prefering the layout of the Clarion, despite the fact that the NEB has always been my "grail layout" for Bibles. In the NEB's defense, I think the proportions of the early 1960s New Testaments are better than the full Bibles that came out later. Still, it's a testament to the thought that went into the Clarion.

As my "Short and Stout" essay argues, the peculiar challenges of a single column layout lend themselves to form factors that are shorter and thicker than what we've come to expect in a world of tall, thin slimlines. With its narrowed column, increased type size, and generous line spacing and side margin, the Clarion really seems to have hit on a sweet spot.

And this brings me to a truly unfar comparison: Clarion vs. Pitt Minion. Needless to say, the Pitt Minion is much slimmer. Surprisingly, though, the two editions are roughly similar in length and width, with the Clarion edging out the Pitt Minion only slightly. This gives you a sense of how compact the Clarion really is, not at all the behemoth I was expecting:

Then again, we all know what it's like to be photographed at an unflattering angle. We'd all look fat standing next to a Pitt Minion:

When you open them up, however, a little extra skin on the bones doesn't seem like such a bad thing. This comparison illustrates my favorite argument quite well: yes, you do end up with a thicker Bible if you move to single column and do it right. But given the same page size, look how much better the reading experience becomes!

I rest my case.

Look, I love the Pitt Minion and use it constantly. It's my knockaround edition, the one I'm not afraid to ding up and damage. And when people ask whether the type is too small, I say, "Of course not." Never mind that when I read from it in class, I'm always holding it six inches from my nose. The proposition behind the Clarion is really simple. What would you say to a Pitt Minion that's much more readable and twice as thick around the middle. My answer is, "Bring it on."

 

Binding
The binding options are familiar from the re-release of the Cameo line -- I'll cover the other formats when they become available. The black goatskin is the familiar, edge-lined, liquidly limp cover that's now become standard at the top end of the Cambridge line. It's grainy, stitched around the edges for added durability, and incredibly flexible. The Clarion comes with two ribbons, red ones in the case of the black.  

The nice thing about a limp cover like this is how flexible the Bible becomes in your hand. A stiff cover imposes its rigidity on the soft paper block within whie a limp one allows the feel of the entire book to conform to the fluidity of the paper. It's not that hard is wrong and soft is right. Both approaches, when done well, can work great. (And both are challenging to do well.) What I like about the Clarion is that its soft cover makes it easy to half the book size while reading, concentrating on one page at a time:

Not to mention, that grainy goatskin is really pretty:

I mentioned before that the cover is "edge-lined," and Bob Groser gave me a hands-on explanation of what this means. In the photo below, you see what Bible covers look like before the text blocks are inserted. On the left, we have the traditional sort of leather cover. The black boards are covered in brown calfskin, and once the text block is inserted, end papers will cover over the boards. The stiffness you feel when you handle the cover isn't the leather, it's the board underneath. Like a pair of good leather shoes, a cover like this is broken in over time. With use, it grows more supple and flexible.

The edge-lined cover on the right is limp right out of the box. It's already complete before the text block is added. There's no board inside, just a layer of black goatskin on the outside and a layer of black polyurethane liner on the inside, with a cut-out in the middle for the text block to be inserted. Bob was quick to point out that "limp out of the box" isn't always better. There's something to be said for the process of breaking in a Bible. My experience with my Pitt Minion bears this out. When I first wrote about it, I couldn't understand why Cambridge has put such a stiff board under the goatskin. I made breaking that board in my mission in life. Well, mission accomplished. Now I actually prefer that broken-in cover to the limp-from-the-box one. Go figure.

Once the text block is added (above), this is what you get. When it comes to color preference, with apologies to Mr. Ford, I like "any color so long as it's not black." Having said that, black is the classic color for Bibles and here it's executed in a very attractive way.

Like all of Cambridge's edge-lined offerings, this one is ridiculously flexible. It laughs at my attempts to bend it out of shape, pliably flouncing back into its original shape. 

To be honest, though, they could bind the Clarion in cardboard and I would still think it was fantastic. The real story here isn't on the surface; it's within. With the Clarion, Cambridge has produced an edition that ticks all of Mark Bertrand's boxes. The fact that they plan to introduce a number of translations in this format suggests it'll be around for awhile, too. 

Chris Wright was gracious enough to suggest that all my advocacy for this kind of an edition played a part in the decision to produce it. If so, I am truly honored. As the name suggests, this Bible is a clarion call -- not just to the industry but to posterity. This is the sort of Bible we ought to be making and using. And now we finally can. There are more good single column options on the horizon. It's fitting that Cambridge, with its long history of Bible printing, should be in the forefront.

It's a little late to start, but if you had your hopes set on reading the King James Version during its 400th Anniversary, there's no better way to experience it than the Cambridge Clarion.

 

Innovative Single Columns: Pomegranate and Psalmen

One of the highlights of my summer was attending the International Christian Retail Show in boiling hot Atlanta, where I was signing copies of my new novel, Pattern of Wounds. The books are free at these events, and therefore the lines are long. I was an autographing machine. Suddenly I looked up and found Klaus Krogh and Thomas Silkjær of 2Krogh fame. Klaus is one of those guys you feel like you've known forever after five minutes of meeting him. He and Thomas invited my wife Laurie and I to meet up once I was done with the self-promoting. Not long after, we'd run out of books to sign and it was time for some Bible-related fun!

2Krogh is a Bible design enthsiast's dream firm. Designing Bibles is what they do, and they've been at it a long time. Over dinner, Thomas showed me a Bible app they've developed for the iPad called Bible + Pomegranate. I was blown away. There are all sorts of typographical nuances that don't translate into e-books yet. Whenever I see a Kindle commercial boasting about the 3,000-odd books the device can hold, I always think, "Oh, goody, 3,000 books set in awkwardly spaced system fonts! Yippee!" But 2Krogh is working to change all that by creating typographer-friendly text display on the iPad. And the navigation system is wild! It costs $1.99 to download Version 1.0 at the link above ... so far the only English translation is the KJV, which looks great.

Above: A snap from the promotional material. You can see the clicky wheel
in the bottom corner that lets you scroll through books, chapters, etc.
In action, it's very cool.

Above: Here's what the text looks like in single column mode on my iPad.
When you click on the little circle in the lower left corner,
the thumb wheel emerges. (See Below)

Above: As you select you option, a new wheel opens. Here I've chosen NT > Matthew
and it's awaiting my choice of chapter. Once I choose, verse options appear. 

Klaus has been designing Bibles since the 1960s, and while 2Krogh is relatively new to the English-language market, I have a feeling that is going to change. Talking to Klaus is like having a living, breathing Helvetica documentary -- i.e., the man knows a lot about design. (Note to the city of Atlanta: we discussed your new street signs, and they were found wanting.) If you're a publisher looking to design innovative editions of the Bible, you should be talking to these guys. In the photo above, you can also see a snippet of the new 2Krogh-designed New Oxford Annotated Bible, 4th Edition. They improved the layout, saved 300 pages, and won a couple of awards in the process.

Hugo van Woerden, managing director of Jongbloed, joined us, too. Together 2Krogh and Jongbloed are sort of a one-two punch of Bible design and production (hence, their collaborative Design and Production Bible), with 2Krogh doing the design and Jongbloed the printing. In addition to the aforementioned New Oxford Annotated Bible, the team is responsible for a number of other projects, including Cambridge's new Transetto. Jongbloed has patented the Dwarsligger® concept, which is called a FlipBack in English editions, and is introducing it into the British book market. Here's the promotional video:

Hugo left a package at my hotel including some sample FlipBacks, and since then I've been hooked. I already loved the idea after spending time with the Transetto, and now that I've seen some other books in this format, I'm entirely on board. I've been reading Melvyn Bragg's The Adventure of English -- I'm a big fan of the "In Our Time" podcast, so it's a natural for me -- and might even convince myself to read Cold Mountain. Since I just re-watched the Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy television adaptation with Sir Alec Guiness, I've been thinking of reading the book (which despite being a Le Carre fan, I've never done). Lo and behold, there's a FlipBack version, which is winging its way to me as we speak. (If you're game, here's a list of titles currently available at Amazon.co.uk.)

Okay, but wait a second. This is Single Column Week at Bible Design Blog, so what does all this have to do with single column Bible settings? Well, included in that package from Hugo was the most beautiful example of the Dwarsligger® to date, the one I swooned over when I saw its picture in the Design & Production Bible. It's the Dutch-language Psalmen:

The reason I love Psalmen so much is that it's the best of both worlds: classic typography combined with a very innovative format. The other FlipBacks look as modern on the inside as they do on the outside. They're set in modern, miniscule type. If it's not a sans-serif font, it's a tiny-little-microscopic serif font. The wonder of these FlipBacks is that they take full-size books and through a format and paper sleight-of-hand, make them ultraportable while still readable. 

But Psalmen isn't about packing lots of words into a small space. It features a beautiful, two-color, single column layout of the psalms with plenty of white space. I would cherish a psalter set in this type no matter what the format. The fact that it can be tucked away into the pocket and still look so generously proportioned when opened is an extra benefit. 

One of the areas where single column settings really shine is the display of poetry. In a double-column setting, the narrow columns force unintentional line breaks, chopping up the verses. Single column layouts minimize this effect, giving the lines room to breath on the page. 

Despite it's small footprint, when you open the FlipBack, instead of two tiny pages you find one larger page. As a result, the reading experience is comparable to what you would have with a full-size edition. To illustrate this, in the photo below I've placed the open Psalmen next to the corresponding page in Cambridge's Clarion KJV. Not bad, huh?

Psalmen also illustrates the ways that color can be used creatively in layout. Instead of the words of Christ in red, here the color red is used to set off the chapter numbers, section dividers and marginalia from the text.

2Krogh and Jongbloed have some exciting things in store for Bible publishing. It was a true privilege to spend some time with the people whose life's work overlaps so perfectly with one of my greatest passions. Next up for Single Column Week? We'll find out what happened when I sat down with Chris Wright and Bob Groser from Cambridge University Press! 

Single Column Confraternity Version New Testament

Single column text settings of the Bible are not a recent phenomenon. Before and after the advent of printing, Bibles were produced in single columns. Examining an exhibit of old Bibles at the recent International Christian Retail Show, I was surprised how many translations into Native American tongues, for example, were printed in single column. Of course, the milestone people often point to is Scrivener's 1873 Paragraph Bible (which, sadly, didn't start a trend). When it comes to good, modern design, however -- editions which feature thoughtful single column typography, both elegant and still-readable, I typically point to the New English Bible (the New Testament was published in 1961). Before that, everything was tenebrae, then suddenly we had some typographical lux.

Much as I love the NEB setting, it pains me now to have to admit somebody else got there first. While scouring the shelves at Dogwood Books in Rome, Georgia this summer, where the religion section never fails to satisfy, I discovered a beautifully-produced Confraternity Version New Testament published in 1941 by St. Anthony Guild Press in New Jersey. It's a hardback with red page edges in remarkable shape. The paper is thick and opaque. But most importantly, the text is set in single columns with the chapter and verse numbers removed to the margin (like the NEB's twenty years later). 

I can't remember the last time a vintage Bible on the bookstore shelf got me excited. They're usually dry and crackly, in terrible shape, dusty and falling apart. Not so this one. (Maybe the avant garde styling preserved it from use back in the day.) As a result, even though I was on the road, more than a thousand miles from my good camera, I settled in at the nearest Starbucks for an impromptu photo shoot. 

The hardback cover features a grained surface with decorative seals on the spine. I'm not going to do a yoga shot, so take my word that the cover has some spring to it, similar to UBS hardbacks (a feature I really like, as it allows the cover to flex along with the text block when you're flipping through pages.) In back, there's a glossary and some primitive but appealing color maps.

Officially, this is the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine Edition of the New Testament. Members of the Episcopal Committee, the Theological Censors, and the Revision Committe and Editorial Board are listed inside, along with a note that the committee was aided by "active members of the Catholic Biblical Association of America." In front, there's a copy of a letter of congratulations from the Commissio Pontificia De Re Biblica to the Bishop of Kansas City, who presided over the commission, along with a preface titled "On the Reading of Holy Scripture," excerpted from Pope Benedict XV's 1920 encyclical Spiritus Paraclitus.

The text is presented in single column layout with chapter and verse numbers on the left margin. References and notes, where they exist, are at the bottom of the page. Section headings interrupt the text at frequent intervals, and are set on the left in boldface italics. This is my one real criticism of the design; a less obtrusive way of setting the headings would break the flow of the text less.

Book introductions appear on their own pages, as you can see in the example of Titus below:

A parenthetical note: I snapped these photos immediately after visiting Artlite Pens in Atlanta. If you're ever in the area, Artlite is a must-stop for pen and paper lovers. They have a case full of discounted pens that (unlike so many discount counters) really are discounted. My wife picked up the Montegrappa below for a great price, and I got the super-small stainless ballpoint next to it -- which I lost within a week. The notebook is an Apica CD10, a nice little sewn volume from Japan with acid-free, fountain pen-friendly paper that costs about three bucks. I'd heard about them before, but was never interested until I actually saw them at Artlite. Now I'm very interested.

But enough about that. As you can see in the picture above, this NT is about the size of a hymnal or pew Bible. That's because the paper is relatively thick and opaque. I don't know what these sold for originally, but mine cost $12 from Dogwood. In back there's a price tag that reads $3 from some time in the past, which conjures up stacks of unread new-fangled single column New Testaments being unloaded at the Bishop's fire sale. 

The end paper (is it still called an end paper when it's in front?) has been removed, probably because it bore a bookplate of some kind.

Here's a better photo of a page spread, giving you an idea of what the reading experience would be like. As I mentioned, the chapter and verse numbers are on the left margin unlike the NEB, which places them on the outer margin -- the left margin on lefthand pages and the right margin on righthand pages. Later this week, we'll look at another single column setting that places the numbers on the inner margin. I'm not sure which placement is best. The always-on-the-left placement here does seem to be a natural way of doing it, especially for readers accustomed to finding the verse numbers there (as most would have been in 1941). 

Another interesting feature, seen below in verse 5 which reads: "according to the purpose of his will." If you enlarge the photo, you'll notice a thin vertical rule between that phrase and the beginning of verse 6, "unto the praise of the glory...." That rule marks the break between the two verses, and it only occurs in instances where the new verse doesn't begin with a new sentence or at the first punctuation. If a new sentence starts in the line or the verse break comes at a comma, there is no rule. In this case, the vertical rule is there because there are two commas on the line. Without it, the reader wouldn't know which one marked the break. This is a clever, unobtrusive way of making sure someone reading this paragraphed text would be in no doubt as to where the verse begin and end. 

Hardback Bibles offer a splendid compromise between readability and durability, particularly when they open flat and feature covers with slight flex. The only reason I don't endorse them more strongly is that a lot of modern hardbacks are cheaply made. When you find a good one, it's ideal for study and teaching.

I'll leave you with a sharp photo of the page layout. Compare it to the NEB page layout here and you'll notice that while the NEB is a bit more elegant, a bit more modern, the concepts are very similar.

So that's a quick look at the history of single column settings. If anyone knows more history about this edition, I would love to hear it in the comments. For the rest of "Single Column Week" at Bible Design Blog, we'll be looking at modern interpretations of the concept.

Single Column Week @ Bible Design Blog

Today we're kicking off Single Column Week at Bible Design Blog, a celebration of one of the things I have been advocating for from day one: single column text settings of the Bible. Why am I so passionate about single column settings? It's simple, really. Books we read are set in single columns. Books we look stuff up in are set in double columns. Reading = single. Reference = double. If you're new to the topic, here's a crash course in my single column philosophy:

Why Paragraphs? Why Single Column?

Making Single Column Settings Work

Page vs. Book

Short and Stout: Ideal For Factor for Single Column Settings

But here's a photograph that helps make the case for me:

On top is Cambridge's new Clarion KJV, the first in a whole line of Clarion single column settings Cambridge will be introducing. We'll be taking our first detailed look at the Clarion KJV this week, and I hope to bring you more as the complete range of binding options are available. On bottom is my trust Cambridge Pitt Minion ESV. Now I love the Pitt Minion and use it constantly, but I think you'll agree that the Clarion is more readable and more elegantly proportioned. 

As we'll see, there are some trade-offs. The Clarion is a slightly taller and wider. It's perhaps twice as thick. But the trade-offs aren't as significant as you might think. To enjoy a readable, single column text setting, you don't have to give up as much as you may have feared. The Clarion is still relatively compact and beautifully sized for the hand. 

Some of you are already single column converts. Others cling tenaciously to the traditional double column look. Whether this week will change any minds, I don't know. The good news is, for those of you who've been waiting for well-designed, proportional single column text settings of the Bible in a wide variety of translations, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Check back for more throughout the week.