Zondervan has worked with 2K/Denmark to design a new layout, called the Passaggio Setting, that will place prose in a single-column layout and poetry in a double-column layout. The name comes from classical singing where a vocalist has the ability to skillfully change from one register to another. Like a skilled classical vocalist, the Passaggio Setting skillfully changes its layout between prose and poetry- even if it’s just one line. This creates a highly readable layout that’s beautiful, easy to read, and saves space.
The Passaggio Setting Bibles will be available in 4 lines:
- NIV Heritage Bible
- NASB Heritage Bible
- NIV Thinline Bible
- NASB Thinline Bible
The prose setting looks very much like the original NIV Heritage Bible in the Premier Collection but with a few tweaks that make it stand out. The text in the Heritage is blue and has yellow highlights for the section headings, page numbers, dividing line between the text and footnotes, and the book name and chapter in the header. The header content is placed vertically along the side of the page at the top. The footnotes are placed in a single column with the notes spread apart to make them as easy to find as possible. The Thinline editions will have black text.
The prose in the Heritage edition has around 14 words per line. Poetry has around 8 words per line. All poetry is placed in a single column regardless of the number of verses or lines. This makes the literary structure of each passage is easy to identify at a glance. This enhances readability and makes more efficient use of space since doesn’t waste whitespace that’s normally seen with single-column poetic settings.
I’ve only shown a portion of the sample they sent me. I love seeing prose and poetry in a different setting, but the traditional single-column does take a lot of space. Switching poetry to double-column makes it stand out even more than normal and it doesn’t have awkward spaces on the page. Switching between the two while reading is smooth. The large verse numbers helps to make them easier to find.
The Passaggio Setting Bibles will be available in October. I’m looking forward to seeing them. What do you think about the Passaggio Setting?