Among those familiar with Ellen White’s books, they are often cited by their acronyms: PP, PK, DA, AA, and GC. In light of this, we decided to design monograms for each book and we used the shapes found within the sanctuary as inspiration. The Outer Court and Holy Place are rectangles using a 2:1 ratio; the Most Holy Place and altar are perfect squares, and the laver is a circle. These shapes were stacked together to establish the underlying grid that was used in the creation of each monogram.

The monograms are presented in white foil on the spines, blind embossed on the cloth covers, and even show up within the patterns printed on the endpapers within each book. 

The Conflict Beautiful is available with two distinct cover options—an elegant grayscale, hinting at the struggle between light and dark, and a sanctuary palette of scarlet, purple, and blue. 

In both cover options, the books are organized using a chiastic structure, which was a very common literary device used throughout the Bible. Essentially, the most important content is in the middle with the content before building to it and the content after mirroring that process in reverse. So The Desire of Ages (Ellen White’s book on the life of Christ) becomes the focal point in The Conflict Beautiful.

Every set of The Conflict Beautiful is delivered in a custom slipcase that’s wrapped in the same soft cloth that’s used on the covers of the books. The slipcase is also angled back to assist in removing and replacing the books.  

When it comes to book design, a really great typeface is one you don’t even notice. Your eyes glide across the page effortlessly moving from letter to letter, word to word, and line to line. This might sound simple, but designing a typeface that does all those things well is extremely difficult. After extensive exploration we decided to use Pensum Pro, a beautiful, highly readable font family designed by TypeMates, a foundry located in Germany.

The paper used on the interior of The Conflict Beautiful is made by Salzer. It’s silky smooth to the touch, ink sits beautifully on the page, it’s acid-free, chlorine-free, non-yellowing, has a high opacity, and best of all it’s entirely wood-free. This is a premium paper made specifically for books, and we think you’re going to love it as much as we do.

We created a dual-page numbering system to make sure it was easy to cite or lookup a specific passage, while not dictating the design of the page. 

The numbers in black along the bottom of the page are the page numbers for The Conflict Beautiful; the numbers in gray are the page numbers in the original editions of the books. The symbols in the outside margin mark the first complete paragraph of the original-edition page listed in gray type at the bottom of the page. To look up or cite a passage from a subsequent paragraph, simply count the paragraph breaks that come after the symbol.

We used Smyth Sewn binding for The Conflict Beautiful, which is the highest quality binding technique available. Each page is physically sewn in, resulting in a book that will stand up to heavy use over many years. Smyth Sewn books also open flat, making them a pleasure to read, and easy to highlight or jot notes in the margin.

The New King James Version (NKJV) is quoted in place of most King James Version (KJV) Bible quotations throughout the book series. The KJV is maintained in some instances, such as, for example, when Ellen White highlights a specific word in KJV as the thematic focus of a sentence or paragraph; when the NKJV wording brings a much different word picture or meaning than Ellen White’s use of KJV; and in rare instances where she cites a margin note in KJV that is crucial to her meaning. Ellen White occasionally quotes from the Revised Version (R.V.), and some of these instances have been maintained in the Conflict Beautiful series, mainly where she uses R.V. to gain a particular word in the Bible quotation that does not appear in KJV.

One of our goals with The Conflict Beautiful was to create the best reading experience possible, and this meant updating select words using the following criteria: (1) the word is archaic and unfamiliar to contemporary audiences, and (2) the meaning of the word today is different from its meaning in the nineteenth century.

Examples of word changes that meet both of these criteria are intercourse (changed to “interaction”); aught (“anything”); ass (“donkey”); demoralized (“corrupted”); idiotic (“mentally impaired”); list (“wish”); promiscuous (“indiscriminate”); and without (“outside”). 

Published in 1890, Patriarchs and Prophets explores the origin of evil, beginning with the story of Satan’s rebellion in heaven, and going through the creation of the world, the early patriarchs, all the way up through the life of King David.

Published in 1917, Prophets and Kings begins with the life of Solomon and details the story of the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and the prophets who sought to call them to repentance. The volume concludes with the time of Israel’s exile into captivity.

Published in 1898, The Desire of Ages details the central, pivotal event in Biblical history. In beautiful depth, this book depicts the birth, life, death, and resurrection of the desire of ages, Jesus Christ.

Published in 1911, Acts of the Apostles covers the period in time from the Great Commission, through the early New Testament church and the persecution it faced, up to John the Revelator’s visions on Patmos.

First published in 1888, but revised and republished in 1911, The Great Controversy begins with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, takes the reader through the whole of Church History, past, current, and future, up to the end of sin and the recreation of the earth.

If you’d like to learn more about the author of these books, we humbly suggest you give a listen to The Conflict Audible—a podcast where we invite experts to answer our questions abut Ellen White and her writings.