Project Description
The United Bible Societies produced a publication celebrating 40 years of collaboration with the Vatican in Bible translation. The agreement establishing this collaboration was called Dei Verbum or God Speaks. The greatest design challenge was that this was a co-edition appearing in 7 languages. This meant all text on the cover and interior pages had to appear in black only.
The cover symbolism shows two ribbons (in the Vatican’s colors) meeting under the Dei Verbum seal. These symbolize the two institutions, as shown by the ribbons terminating above their symbols. The ghosted images running alongside the ribbons was a design feature carried through into the interior.
The interior pages posed an additional challenge. Translations require different character counts to say the same thing. A ribbon marked the center of the layout. Text blocks below the ribbon were aligned from the top of the columns. Text blocks above the ribbon were aligned from the bottom of the columns in the opposite direction.