Art journaling is a popular way to use journaling Bibles. Tyndale’s NLT Inspire was created specifically for art journaling. They even call it The Bible for Creative Journaling. With the Inspire Tyndale didn’t want to just make a journaling Bible like everybody else, but at the same time they wanted to create something familiar. How can that even be accomplished? In this review I take a look at Tyndale’s NLT Inspire and see what it has to offer to the world of art journaling.
Binding
The cover is called leather-like silky vintage blue/cream. It feels like vinyl over board with a lined texture. It has a feminine look with floral designs, flowers, butterflies, and a bird on an aqua pattern. It’s one of the more unique designs that I’ve seen. It even has a glittery shimmer when the light hits it just right. The liner is paper and it even has some nice drawings and John 1:1 that can be colored in.
The overall size is standard for single column journaling editions at 8.75 x 6.5 x 1.5. It has an aqua ribbon that’s long and looks elegant.
Paper
The paper is the typical creamy writable paper found in many journal Bibles. I’m guessing that it’s 38gsm. The pages are a little noisy when turned. It’s great for writing and artwork. The page edges have a floral design in aqua. The aqua looks great against the cream paper when the Bible is open.
Typography
The text is set in single column paragraph format. I love the NLT layout. Poetry is set in stanzas, quotes are indented and set apart, and letters are indented. Section headings are in bold and stand out just right. The out margin is 2 inches with 36 lines for notes and drawings.
At 8.65, this is the largest font of any single column journaling Bible so far. It’s black letter, dark, and easy to read. Of all the journaling editions that I’ve reviewed this one has my favorite font.
There are around 80 characters across with 14-16 words. The columns are 3 5/8 wide. The header has page numbers in the outer corners and book name, chapter, and verse numbers in the center. My personal preference is to have the page numbers in the center and chapter and verse in the outer corners. This would make navigation easier as you flip pages to find what you’re looking for.
Footnotes
Footnotes are placed in the footer. They show textual variants, historical and cultural information, alternate renderings, meanings of names, where quotes are citing and cited from, etc.
The footnotes are keyed to the text in an interesting way. The text has an asterisks showing that there’s a footnote. The footnotes give the chapter and verse number for each note. I like this in case a footnote catches my attention and I want to read the verse. The verse number is given so I know where to go. I’d like to see this be standard in Bibles. This also keeps the text cleaner because there are no numbers or letters within the text other than verse numbers. This is less confusing (I can’t tell you how many times in other Bibles that I’ve thought a number was for a footnote when it was a verse number or vice versa. This won’t happen in the NLT).
Artwork
The included artwork is where the Inspire shines. There are 400 black and white line drawings that can be colored in. The drawings are in the margins and don’t overlap the text. They do sometimes take up more space in poetry and at the end of books but they never cover over the text.
The art includes words, banners, flowers, birds, butterflies, swords, armor, musical notes, wreathes, trees, animals, objects, and lots more. There are several different art styles including realistic, highly decorative, and cartoonish. The realistic is my favorite but I love all of it. The book titles are also decorated with several different art styles.
The artwork gives you a great starting point for creating your own art. You can easily add to the drawings that are already here if you want to customize them and make them your own. This is an excellent way to get started in art journaling.
My wife plans to color several of these drawings in and do her own review on this Bible.
Index of Scripture Verses
In the back is an index of all of the Scriptures with drawings. It gives you the book, chapter and verse, and page number. It also has a reference to word art. After the index there are three blank pages that I think would be great for creating index of your own work.
Conclusion
One of the latest trends in journaling Bibles is to provide artwork for you to color and to use as examples in creating your own artwork. Tyndale continues this trend by giving you artwork you can color. The NLT Inspire is a good choice for anyone interested in art journaling and coloring. With 400 illustrations to color and plenty of room to add your own drawings and thoughts, you can make this Bible uniquely yours.
Tyndale provided this Bible free for review. I was not required to give a positive review – only an honest review. My opinions are my own.
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