Year of the Family was a major program conducted a few years ago by Bible societies in the Middle East. I was asked to design a symbol for it.

Left: This concept shows a family circle, with a cross created in the space defined by the family gathered together.

Right: This concept was the one chosen. It shows God’s protective hands around the family.

Click on the image to see a low resolution animation that was done for television.

Heroes of the Faith was a logotype for a video series produced by the Bible Society of Egypt.

For those unaccustomed to Arabic script, this needs to be viewed from right to left.

The torch is actually the first letter in the word “faith.”  The previous letter provided empty space for the hero and the next letter (in Arabic, an “alef”) was just the right shape for the torch in his hand.

Sometimes things work out just right!

Publishing World was a magazine briefly produced in English, French and Spanish editions for the UBS fellowship.

One of the challenges in designing for three languages was incorporating a consistent design element. Fortunately each title had the letter “O.” Using a sower of the seed (a traditional Bible society symbol), it was easy to fit the figure into the “O” with the seeds trailing behind. It then became a symbol of the world, hence fitting with the title “Publishing World.”

Renew was a recent task force in the UBS. These three logo concepts show that any design problem can have multiple solutions.

Upper Left: This was based on the traditional UBS “blue stripe” logo.

Lower Left: A new dawn marks a new beginning, and the word “Renew” fits perfectly into the image of a sun appearing over the horizon.

Right: This was a global effort to look at the UBS structure with the aim of making it new. I tried to capture that process with this symbol.

The UBS Cape Town Book Fair theme was “Publishing with Purpose: Resourcing the Church.” Any Bible society faces a number of critical questions when seeking to resource the Church with Scripture, including:

> Which format to use?

> Which translation will best fit the target audience?

> How can we encourage engagement with the Scriptures?

I tried to show the process by creating a maze with the symbol of a church as the goal.