FOX IN THE SNOW

Here’s the next stage: an issue built from scratch!

The process was reasonably straightforward, only a few glitches. For example the slideshow function does not work with back and forward buttons as it is supposed to, so I had to use a thumbnail image index instead. Overall though it went smoothly enough, and I got all the elements I tried out to work - slideshow, video, hyperlinks, scrollable content, web view (i’m saving the 360 view, panorama and audio functions for another time). Full technical notes below (content is from The Natural History Museum’s book ‘Bats’ by Phil Richardson).

Document setup

- facing pages: off
- intent: web
- units: pixels pixels as units (especially useful when snapping objects to grids )
- margins at top and bottom of page larger to give room for nav controls of the iPad
- size: 
1. page snap = 1024x768 per page on the iPad
2. smooth scrolling = 1024x4000 for horizontal and 768x5000 for vertical (use bundler to turn on smooth scrolling)

Best Practice

-14 body point text at least to make readable & clickable
- include _v or _p(for vertical/portrait) and  _h or _l(for horizontal/landscape) suffix in file name
NOTE: You cannot mix and match orientations within an issue. The entire issue must be dual, portrait, or landscape.
- you can scale down large images; they will be downsampled when bundled. 
- you should use correctly sized images in overlays because overlay resources are not downsampled and may increase the size of the .issue file. use JPEG images with medium compression 
- use RGB colourspace for images
- for non-interactive images you place in InDesign, you can use any format, including PSD, TIFF, AI, and JPEG. When bundled, these objects are compressed and converted into a PNG or JPEG file for each page
- avoid running objects into the bleed area, snap objects to the edge of the document.
- if there is too much blank space after you finish your design for smooth scrolling, turn on Layout Adjustment (Layout > Layout Adjustment). Then choose File > Document Setup and change the Height value
- add background colours to a master page. If you want to use different colours for each page in the document, create a rectangle shape the size of the page, apply a fill colour, and arrange it to the back of the stack. To avoid selection problems, lock the background object
- for large text in overlays, use a PNG or JPG image with medium-high compression. For small text or detailed icons, use PNG images
- The first page of the first stack is used as the cover of the issue (interactive elements are omitted)

 Notes

- On Release is the only supported button event. 

So I tried out my first iPad creation today. I had worked through the tutorial files for the new Adobe Digital Content Creator some time ago and finally got around to testing it out on my new iPad. It all worked OK and looked great. I’m slightly disappointed that I can’t pinch to zoom on all the pages like I can with websites. I’m not sure why this is. See the sideshow below for pics. Although you can’t really tell, on the bike with the page there is embedded video and a hyperlink, whilst the page with the fishes has a slideshow.

 There was also a pre-made demo document showing the other available features (not pictured here). On this I thought the embedded scrolling and the embedded web pages was very neat. Not so enamoured with the 3D repousse example (some 3D text) but would like to see this used on a real life 3D object.

Next step is to create some content and layouts myself and put all the other features to the test,

This is an interesting way to navigate through an e-book.

It almost recreates how one might flick through a printed book in a casual way to see what catches the attention (but with more subject specificity and links built in)!

I don’t know if this is officially ‘micro-chunking’ but it certainly looks as though it breaks the text down into manageable little pieces. Good for time when attention spans are short.

I like the way this asks you to read the text as web of connections, rather than a linear narrative.

Here’s a video of a talk I went to a couple of weeks ago at the ICA. The panel members discussed the problems of the newspaper and book industries mainly (there was very little mention of the magazine industry).

There was a general consensus that newspapers and newspaper journalists themselves have been struggling terribly for a long time now and that we are fast approaching crisis point. The feeling was that books, on the other hand, were coping a lot better with the changes in the industry, with various strategies to cope with, and even utilise the challenge of the web.

Roy Greenslade, Media Columnist for the Guardian pointed out that the main reason newspapers were having such a hard time is that historically, since the abolition of the newspaper stamp duty in 1855 they have become heavily reliant on advertising in a way that books haven’t. Since companies are increasingly investing in web advertising a massive source of revenue has been not so slowly ebbing away. Magazines, he seemed to think were slightly different, because of the niche markets for which they usually cater (I’m not entirely clear why this makes such a difference really).

Andre Schiffrin’s made an interesting argument for alternative funding sources. He pointed out that in Europe there is a lot of government support for the culture industry in general. For example in France, if a commercial property comes up for rent and the neighbourhood is suitable, the government will offer the rent half-price to a bookshop in order to preserve the culture and character of the area.

H4- pullquote -He went on to suggest that if we really believe in, and want to preserve the newspaper, (if not the whole publishing industry) we should consider the possibility of paying for it through government subsidies paid for by tax.

David Roth-Ey, Head of Digital at Harper Collins and the voice of book publishing at the table, stressed the need for staff to be flexible and publishers to be nimble in these changing times. Something which he pointed out was a lot easier for smaller publishing houses, who don’t have the massive resources to restructure or the bureaucracy to make change such a laborious process. There was talk of the concept of ‘the long tail’, i.e. selling less of more and how this could generate revenue, through the digitisation of a publisher’s back list.

I think they failed to touch on the point that book publishing is surely more robust because of the quality and specialism of the content. Whilst many people might think about having a stab at short form journalism, they wouldn’t necessarily have the knowledge or the resolve to produce a encyclopaedic guide to 20th century architecture for example. Also I think it’s interesting that the ‘long tail’ theory might also help small independent publisher - as choice, demand and access to niche or indie content will increase.