Old & New

You may have noticed that since I completed my Word project last November, I haven't been posting much new design work. There's a good reason for that. Along with my bud, Troy DeShano (AKA StrongOdors), I've been spending nearly all my free organizing a collaborative design project based on passages from the Bible. Word had one voice – mine. This project will have many. It's still a little ways out from launching, but it's far enough along that I wanted to share a bit about it. The name of the project is "Old & New." The idea is that these will be new visual representations based on an old text, the Bible. This will be similar to other recent collaborative projects like Evan Stremke's Momentus (US historical events) and Dan Cassero's 50 and 50 (state mottos) in that it will be many designers creating many designs based on one general theme or source.

Questions

When will it launch? Hopefully in the next 4-6 weeks. Troy, myself and all the great collaborators involved are doing this in our free time so throwing out a solid launch date is a little difficult.

What passages are you going to use? That's for us to know and you to find out. We're keeping that under wraps for now, but I will say that the passages will be a mix of the common, uncommon and bizarre.

So is the goal of the project to get people to accept Jesus as their lord and savior so they can get to heaven and live with the angels? No. The goal is not to convert anyone or create some type of religious propaganda. Rather, the goal is to simply see what happens when artists with different backgrounds and beliefs explore passages of the Bible in an honest way. Recently, I've talked about valuing "honesty above propriety" when it comes to the Bible. I feel like Old & New is an extension of that idea. What will happen when a bunch of really talented artists take honest looks at Biblical passages? I'm not sure, but I can't wait to see.

How can I stay updated about the project? You can follow the project on Twitter, Facebook and also sign up on the web site to receive email updates.

Artist Lineup

Somehow, Troy and I managed to trick 22 artists, illustrators and designers who are far more talented than us into participating. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the lineup for Old & New:

1. Adam Grason
2. Alice Potter
3. Andrew Lyons
4. Anne Ulku
5. Brian Danaher
6. Carla Zetina-Yglesias
7. Cassie McDaniel
8. Chaz Russo
9. Dan Christofferson
10. Eric Smith
11. Evan Stremke
12. Jeff Gill
13. Jim LePage
14. Jon Ashcroft
15. Kyle Steed
16. Lindsey McCormick
17. Lisa Romero
18. Lydia Nichols
19. Michael Cina
20. Nate Utesch
21. Pope St. Victor
22. Scott Allen Hill
23. Troy DeShano
24. Ward Jenkins

Trust me, you'll want to take the time to click on each and every name above. These are some extremely talented folks and Troy and I are thrilled to have them on board.

Stay tuned and make sure to follow the project on Twitter, Facebook and visit the web site to sign up for email updates!