Frequently Asked Questions

Who are you?

We are Types & Symbols, a design studio focused on creating remarkable Adventist experiences through both self-initiated and client-commissioned projects.

We’ve worked with clients like Adventist Review Ministries, Voice of Prophecy, and The Nicodemus Society to create brand identities, digital experiences, and publications. We also initiate and launch design-centric projects focused on communicating Adventist beautifully, and The Conflict Beautiful was the first of those projects we released.

Is The Conflict Beautiful authorized by the church?

Officially, no: the only authorized publishers of Ellen G. White’s books are the church’s publishing houses. However, the text of these books is in the public domain, and many other independent publishers have produced their own editions of various Ellen G. White books in the past. We did take the initiative to meet with the White Estate when we were first developing this project, and maintained communication with them at different points throughout the project, but officially speaking there is no approval or oversight from the White Estate.

Why physical books?

There are quite a few reasons for this (which we’ll get into below) but the major one is the experiential quality. 

Digital tools can be helpful, and maybe preferable, if you’re trying to gather specific quotes, support an argument, or quickly look up a quote someone else shared. But for the process of actually reading, we believe (and research supports) that the experience is significantly better with physical books.

And frankly we think more people should read Ellen White, in context, uninterrupted, for themselves.

But here are some other reasons for physical books that we find compelling:

Analog is the new digital

There's a growing conversation in culture about the concept of digital fatigue, and a desire to seek out analog experiences. Listening to records, playing board games, using film cameras, reading physical books, etc., have found a renewed popularity, especially among people under the age of 35. If you’re interested in learning more, we highly recommend reading The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why they Matter by David Sax.

Physical books promote unitasking

If someone wants to really go deep and have a focused study time, a physical book is a great way to do it. Having a dedicated object for a specific task is really helpful for focusing. When reading on most devices, you’re subject to notifications, which can lead you to check the weather, and then check your calendar, and then open up your email just super quickly to see if something has come up, which can lead to clicking a link, and then watching many excellent cat videos, which then leads to wondering, three hours later, how you got to where you are.

Physical books are conversation starters

Have you ever sat on a plane and had someone ask you what you were scrolling through on your phone? Or had someone pick up your Kindle from a shelf and start trying to look through all your downloaded books? Probably not. But books, proudly displayed, invite discussion, and can turn into great conversations about what you’re reading. Even more so when they’re beautifully designed.

Physical books make great gifts

Books are physical artifacts that you can hold, keep, and reference, and, if you really love them, pass them along to others. While all of Ellen G. White’s books are available to read online for free, gifting someone a beautiful physical book communicates something very different than texting them a link to the EGW writings “BETA” site.

But why such high quality physical books?

We think the quality of the books matters greatly because the quality of a book speaks volumes about its contents. While we certainly agree that people shouldn’t judge books by their covers, a lot of people do. And we want people to know that these books contain invaluable content. Disposable mass-mailed books might have their place, but we think people should have something they want to hold on to. And if people hold on to them, we want them to stand up to heavy use without pages tearing or falling out.

Were any changes made to the text?

We deeply appreciate the original 19th century language, but one of the goals we had for this project was to create the best reading experience possible. Because of that, the New King James Version (NKJV) is quoted in place of most King James Version (KJV) Bible quotations. KJV is maintained where NKJV obscures an important word or idea in Ellen White’s writing or NKJV wording would require a change to Ellen White’s words.

In addition, strict guidelines were used to make select changes to individual words. Most changes had to meet the following criteria: the word is archaic or unfamiliar, and the meaning of the word has changed from its meaning in the nineteenth century. An example of this replacing the word “intercourse” with “interaction”.

Obviously this important work had to be accomplished using the utmost care, so we hired Tim Lale to lead this process and guide a team of expert editors and proofreaders.

If you would like to review a comprehensive list of the editorial changes made across all five books, please click here.

Who was responsible for making the editorial changes?

As a team, we have had the privilege of knowing and working with Tim Lale for well over a decade, and we couldn’t be happier that he was able to carve out time to lead the editorial work on The Conflict Beautiful.

Tim has been a book editor for Pacific Press, a magazine editor at Review and Herald, and has published several Adventist books. He has run his own editorial business for eight years, focused solely on Seventh-day Adventist church clients, including many General Conference and North American Division departments. For The Conflict Beautiful, he established the editorial philosophy of preserving Ellen White’s words and meaning while blending in Bible quotations from the New King James Version.

Much of the editorial work was accomplished by Tim directly, but he also provided oversight and guidance to other seasoned editors and proofreaders involved in the project.

Was this inspired by Bibliotheca?

The idea of redesigning the Conflict of the Ages was something we had been considering for a while, but when we saw the Kickstarter campaign for Bibliotheca we were incredibly excited and it certainly inspired us to move forward. In fact, we reached out to Adam Green (the creator of Bibliotheca) early on in the process and he was incredibly generous in sharing both his time and insight.

I see shipping is free in the USA, but how much does it cost to send these books somewhere else?

For international orders, we calculate the cost of shipping based on your shipping address. We know this can get expensive, and we wish we could do something about that, but the price you see during checkout is our actual cost. This is one of the downsides of being a small business with only one location (in the USA).

Please note that we are not able to determine what import duties, taxes, and charges your country may asses, so these are not included in the shipping cost and all such fees are the buyer’s responsibility. 

To help with this calculation, the books ship in a box measuring 286 mm x 267 mm x 191 mm and weighing 6.1 kg