A PERSONAL PROJECTJude: Contending for the Faith
A biblical commentary. Written and designed.
An independently written and designed biblical-theological commentary exploring the message of Jude through exegesis, theological synthesis, and historically informed interpretation.
THE PROJECT
A Commentary from Text to Finished Book
Jude: Contending for the Faith is a personal publishing project developed to explore what happens when biblical scholarship and editorial design are treated as parts of the same process.
I researched and wrote the commentary, developed its theological and editorial structure, and designed the book from cover through interior typography. The project approaches Jude as both an ancient text requiring careful exegetical attention and a letter written for the formation of the church.
Rather than designing around finished content supplied by someone else, every visual decision grew alongside the writing—from the hierarchy of the commentary to the typography, page architecture, iconography, and final physical presentation.
ROLE
Author · Researcher · Designer
DISCIPLINES
Biblical Studies
Editorial Design
Typography
Book Design
Publishing
FORMAT
6 × 9 in. Commentary
TOOLS
Adobe InDesign
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Photoshop
SCRIPTURE TEXT
World English Bible (WEB)
DESIGNED TO BE READ
Text Hierarchy
A restrained hierarchy separates biblical text, commentary, headings, references, notes, running heads, and folios without allowing the apparatus to overwhelm the reading experience.
Long-Form Typography
The interior was developed for sustained reading rather than screen-first presentation, balancing comfortable measure, leading, margins, footnotes, and page density within a traditional 6 × 9 scholarly format.
Editorial System
Repeated elements were treated systematically so that the book functions as a coherent publication rather than a collection of individually designed pages.
I WROTE THE BOOK I DESIGNED.
Writing and design developed concurrently. Research decisions influenced page architecture; the density of commentary informed typographic scale and measure; textual notes affected the apparatus; and the book's theological themes informed the visual language of the cover.
Working as both author and designer meant that content was never treated as placeholder copy. The project required decisions about argument, sources, biblical languages, citation, hierarchy, readability, and visual communication to function as one editorial system.
PUBLISHING WITH INTENTION
For the biblical text, I selected the World English Bible (WEB), a modern English translation released into the public domain. This allowed the project to incorporate Scripture directly into the commentary and prototype publication without depending on a commercial Bible translation license.
The choice was intentional: while major contemporary translations are valuable for exegetical comparison and are discussed where relevant, the WEB provided a practical foundation for an independently produced publication while respecting the licensing and permissions associated with copyrighted translations.
Scripture quotations presented in the project are from the World English Bible (WEB), Public Domain.
FROM RESEARCH TO PUBLICATION
A personal exploration of what biblical publishing can become when scholarship, writing, typography, and visual theology are developed as one discipline.
Research
Writing
Exegesis
Editorial Design
Cover Design
Typesetting
