Wednesday, September 8, 2010

DSOL (Designing for Speakers of Other Languages)

Things have been so busy, sorry I haven't posted much! But, here's some designs I've been working on for the Translation Center. For most, I still need to coordinate with the translators on the actual text for the covers — which means the type will be totally different!

Miracles of Grace is a devotional book dedicated to literature evangelism ministry (think door-to-door), with testimonies and inspiring stories from literature evangelists around the world. It's being translated into Khmer (Cambodian language), which is actually one of the more challenging languages to work because of the unicode font issues (booklet layout in Publisher, maybe even for the cover). Not my favorite program to work in... but I can take it.


Cover for Steps to Christ, being translated in a Southeast Asian language (forgive me if I don't say which due to religious liberty issues). I'm not sure if they're familiar with the poem “Footprints” but it makes for a nice abstract representation of one's walk with God. Personally, I'm pretty reluctant to have illustrations of a Westernized Jesus to reach an Asian audience.

Cover for End Time Countdown, being translated in a Southeast Asian language (again, forgive me if I don't say which due to religious liberty issues). This cover will look TOTALLY different once I get the actual text, as the said language groups itself into phrases, much like Thai. We may even change the title to be something more appropriate for the audience. Anyway, the book shares/compares the Biblical signs of Jesus' coming with world events.... Ok ok, I take it back about how everything gets longer when translated into this language! They changed the title (because the translation doesn't sound as good) to “End of the Road for the World.”




Health book, in editing process for a Southeast Asian language, that's been retitled as “Listen”—which I thought was interesting for a book like this. Below is an inside spread and a screen shot to show how complicated editing the language is. As far as I know, there's no plugin for handling phrases in this language... so that means I have to wait a long time on my edits!