The making of a beautiful Bible reading experience called Bibliotheca
Usually the word innovation gets used for digital technologies, but innovation can describe all kinds of other categories of culture-making, even the printed book.
Adam Lewis Greene is bringing his experience as a graphic artist in book design and illustration to the Holy Bible, and using the Kickstarter crowd-funding website to cover costs of production. The book project is called Bibliotheca, and Adam has designed this printed Bible into 4 hardbound volumes to make for an enjoyable reading experience like a novel. On the Kickstarter page, you can watch the 8-minute video describing this Bible design project and read the updates.
This book project has gathered notable attention from innovationists, secular, and Christian press:
- Huffington Post - ‘Bibliotheca’ Bible Project Blows Up On Kickstarter With Chapterless Bible
- The Verge - The Bible’s a mess, but a designer is fixing it: ‘Bibliotheca’ is one man’s quest to make the Good Book better
- Bible Gateway blog - A Bible Designed for Beautiful Reading: An Interview with Adam Lewis Greene
- Fast Company - Redesigning The Bible With Readability In Mind: The goal of Bibliotheca project is to print a Bible that you’ll want to read cover to cover
- Relevant Magazine - ‘Bibliotheca’ Project Seeks to Redesign the Bible as a Work of ‘Great Literary Art’
- bustle.com - The Bible gets a makeover to look more like a novel
- Christian Post - ‘Elegant’ Bible Version, Without Chapters, Outsells Expectation by 1100 Percent
- Sunday magazine - A New Kickstarter Reminds Us Why Design Matters
- The Bible Design Blog has 5 posts (and counting) about this project - Bibliotheca’s Fundraising Campaign Is Finishing Strong
- The Blaze - This Guy Recently Revealed Big Plans to Change the Bible — and Raised More Than $500,000 to Achieve His Goal
- digitalsojourner.com - A Minimalist Bible For The Bibliophile & Update
- David Drury - Five Reasons I am on the Bibliotheca Bandwagon
- Christianity Today - Introducing the Bible! Now with Less! Delete the chapter and verse numbers. Kill all the notes. Make it one column. Make a million bucks.
- Trend Hunter - Redesigned Bibles: Bibliotheca by Adam Lewis Greene Makes the Text Easier to Read
This Bibliotheca funding campaign has far exceeded the initial $34,000 goal that was needed for 500 sets. It is approaching its stretch goal of $1 million that will make it possible to add a 5th volume for Deuterocanonical books. (The fundraiser deadline is Sunday, July 27 2014 12:36 PM PDT; this is a limited edition, meaning it may not be available after this initial run)
With the “runaway success of the Bibliotheca funding campaign,” perhaps this will be one of the innovations that will influence the book publishing industry as well as dramatically increase more Bible reading and more people will experience its life-changing message.
[update 7/25/14] This Kickstarter campaign exceeded $1,000,000 raised today at 10:18am CT (UTC-05)
[update 7/27/14] The Bibliotheca campaign raised a total of $1,440,345!