The Saint John’s Bible at OLV

Capaign, Advertising, Motion Graphics, Digital, Signage and Installations

During the Holiday Season of December 2023 to the beginning of January 2024, OLV Basilica had the honor of hosting a traveling edition of The Saint John’s Bible. What exactly is the Saint John’s Bible? In 1998, the Benedictine Abbey and St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota, commissioned the creation of a hand-written, hand-illuminated, and handbound Bible. Creating books in this manner was common in the Middle Ages, prior to the invention and proliferation of the printing press in 1436. After that, though, the process faded away.

Eleven years after a team of dozens of artists and craftspeople—under the eye of legendary calligrapher Donald Jackson—began work on the ambitious project, it was completed. The finished masterwork included seven volumes, 160 major illuminations, and 1,165 hand-written pages. Later, the original Saint John’s Bible was replicated for the purposes of sharing it with people all over the world. One of these traveling editions—Volume Six: Gospels & Acts—was the volume featured at OLV.

The OLV Charities Creative Team was tasked with building up promotion and planning a lot of the events surrounding the Bible’s stay at the Basilica, with the main goal being to get lots of people in the church for the Holiday Season and spread word about why the Bible was such a big deal to have there. To start, we released some teaser content to build up what was to come, like the animated teaser video you see here. This and the Centennial magazine article below were also opportunities to start establishing what the design for SJB promotional materials would look like, with a mix of rustic and elegance in the font selection, as well as featured isolated images in the design—all pairing with and playing up the beautiful illuminations in the Bible.

Selected Event Components

To advertise this event, various designed components were needed. Invitations to a special preview night, ads for local publications, social posts, animated digital ads, event signage, and more had to be created. The Saint John’s Bible at OLV ended up being a huge success, with many people visiting to see and learn about this amazing work. It was a month of receptions, scheduled visitations, docents teaching about the bible, and guest calligraphy sessions, all culminating in a very successful “Kid’s Night Under the Dome,” a massive youth event where kids were invited to camp out under the Dome of Our Lady of Victory National Shrine & Basilica and learn about the Bible. Thanks to the creative around this special event, the word got out and many were able to share in the beauty of this one-of-a-kind work. The people at St. John’s University who manage the original Bible and the traveling edition program also praised OLV for setting “The Gold Standard” in how promotion for the bible should look.