Brooklyn-based creator Ellen Johnston was among the many rising stars at Cool Hunting’s Pitch Night last month, and her digital concept shone just as bright as the many physical objects we admired. With iPad in hand,…
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In the right hands, a clicker and a bag of treats can work wonders on an unruly pet. “Positively Dog Training” is a digital book from Open Air Publishing that hopes to provide some teacher training for new masters in the business of sitting, staying and house-breaking. Accompanying instructional…
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From Open Air Publishing—the group behind the swine-focused “Better Bacon Book”—comes “Wine Simplified,” an iOS-based user’s guide to wine. The multimedia book includes 13 chapters with information from reading labels to the role of climate in viticulture. The book is written by sommelier and wine educator Marnie Old alongside…
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1. Rain Room One spotlight, 100 square meters, a grid of water spigot panels and an array of cameras enable the profoundly rad experience that is Rain Room. Installed in Barbican’s Curve Gallery in London, the Rain Room uses 3D mapping of moving bodies to give visitors the experience…
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Shift reality with the simplistic slit-scan photography app for iPhone and iPad
Even with the plethora of photo editing, altering and sharing apps available today, there can only be so much variety among sepia-toned brunch photos. So as a slight departure from the camera app norm, DScan puts an analog touch on its user’s pictures. Shots produced with the “slit-scan photography…
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The augmented reality makeover of an Academy Award-winning short
From the outset, “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore” was imagined as a children’s book. The story is essentially about a man’s magical life among books, and it makes perfect sense as a picture book. Moonbot Studios—founded in part by “Morris Lessmore” author William Joyce—decided to go a different route by producing the story as an animated short. The short ended up winning an Academy award, and Moonbot went on to create an interactive iPad app, which was so wildly successful that it had librarians everywhere fretting about the end of the book as we know it. Now Moonbot and William Joyce have made a physical picture book with an augmented reality app that finally completes the picture for “Morris Lessmore.”
On its own, the book is brilliant. Joe Bluhm provides new illustrations that surely place the book among the top releases of 2012. Imag-N-O-Tron, the downloadable app that brings the book to life, cues voiceover and animated graphics for each spread. “We got a peek at this new technology called augmented reality—which I guess isn’t new now—but it’s new in the way that you are able to target images,” says Moonbot’s Brandon Oldenburg. “That’s where the magic happens. Augmented reality, up until now, always had to target a QR code. Now we’re able to target an illustration.”
Oldenburg points out that those uneasy about the story-telling power of the iPad app were delighted by the harmony of augmented reality. “The app isn’t replacing the book; it’s showing you a way to bridge the gap between the old and the new,” explains Oldenburg. Without overcomplicating the experience, Imag-N-O-Tron keeps the timeless integrity of the printed book while bringing in animated and interactive elements. Moreover, the framework of Imag-N-O-Tron can be used to enable future publications from Moonbot as well.
Oldenburg is right: this certainly isn’t the first time AR has been applied to a book, but it might be the most seamless integration to date. As the capabilities of the technology continue to expand, AR promises a niche future for the printed storybook—a way to bridge the analog-digital divide.
“The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore” available from Moonbot and on Amazon, and you can find Imag-N-O-Tron in the iTunes App Store.
Curator Chris Anderson on the media company’s new publishing platform
In a recent sit-down with TED Curator Chris Anderson, I had the chance to try out the TED Books app, a dedicated platform to hold the company’s publishing endeavor. Focused on short books, TED Books hopes to continue TED’s method of viral ideation by tailoring to today’s attention spans. This addition to the TED family has fascinating implications for the company, which has clearly moved from an annual meeting-of-the-minds to a global media phenomena. As Anderson, a publishing veteran, explains, “TED is a media organization devoted to ideas worth spreading.”
“Arguably, a lot of the reason why books are the length they are is because the physical form demands it. If you were to print a short book, it just feels cheap, so things have to be 80,000 words regardless of whether or not the content demands it,” says Anderson. “A book that fit the length of the idea that it’s trying to express became interesting to us.” Long enough to communicate the idea and short enough to feel unimposing, TED settled on 20,000 words—an ideal length for a single sitting.
“In a magazine, the mode of behavior is bit like a playground in that you browse—a page here, a page there. With a book, you’re on a train journey. You start and you work your way through, and there’s something very satisfying about that,” explains Anderson. “So what do you do on an iPad where you have lots of reasons to play and lots of opportunities to play?” After searching through available platforms, they settled on Atavist. The platform gave TED the level of interaction they were seeking, with narrative linearity and optional browsing of multimedia tangents.
Launched last January, TED Books is now moving away from Kindle singles to their dedicated app. The new platform accommodates browsing through in-line items that can link to images, maps, audio and video. Best of all, the interaction is optional—users choose the way in which they read by toggling the additional elements on or off. There is also social element that allows for a kind of user-generated marginalia. While books come in at $2.99 on the free app, TED encourages the subscription model for $14.99, which delivers two monthly books for three months. Founding subscribers (people who sign up in the first 90 days) will also receive free access to the entire back catalog of TED Books. Because users know what to expect from TED, the company can get away with this subscription model.
“I think one of the biggest problems in the book publishing world as it goes online is just the problem of discovery—so what’s the equivalent of walking into a bookstore and browsing to find the thing you want? The subscription model is an interesting alternative. You just say ‘Look, trust us.'”
The TED Books app is now available on iTunes. Check out the app in action by watching TED’s video.
Portrait by Josh Rubin
Peruse a half-century of innovative lighting with the Italian brand’s retrospective iPad app
In its 50-year tenure Flos has truly embodied the spirit of Italian design, serving as a laboratory of experimentation for designers such as Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Achille Castiglioni, Antonio Citterio, Paul Cocksedge, Rodolfo Dordoni, Ron Gilad, Konstantin Grcic, Piero Lissoni, Jasper Morrison, Marc Newson, Tobia Scarpa, Philippe Starck, Patricia Urquiola and Marcel Wanders, just to name a few. Entrepreneurs Dino Gavina, Arturo Eiseinkeil and Cesare Cassina established the brand in 1962 based on the simple values of talent, art and culture, and in 1964 Flos— meaning “flower” in Latin—moved to the Brescia area under the guidance of Sergio Gandini, the visionary who brought in legendary talents like Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni and Tobia Scarpa.
Gandini thus began the brand’s remarkable story of passion, hard work and a near obsessive devotion to experimentation, research and innovation—all of which has been diligently documented in the Flos Historical Archive by Gandini’s wife and the 2011 Compasso d’Oro winner Piera Pezzolo Gandini. With the help of a team of professionals and friends, for the last six years Pezzolo Gandini has undertaken meticulous research, restoration and classification work to bring together prototypes, designs, original drawings, packaging, graphics, advertising, photographs, film clips, books, catalogues, awards and appearances at trade fairs, exhibitions and museums. The archive takes various forms—multimedia, paper and collections of products and objects.
In order to celebrate this important anniversary, Flos is launching an iPad application developed by Mobile Dream Studio. We recently had the chance to preview the app in Milan, and it is not simply a catalogue, but a true journey in the history of design. Sergio and Piera’s son, Piero, the CEO of Flos, collaborated with writer and journalist Stefano Casciani and photographer Ramak Fazel to create a real family history focused on “precision, project and poetry”.
The app—available late April 2012—offers a detailed chronological sequence of facts, full of archived images of the people who started the company, as well as sketches, prototypes, games, products and videos of the production processes.
Additionally, a number of Flos’ past and present designers sent the company personal love letters which are presented inside the app in the form of the original document, expressing emotions, memories, gratitude and best wishes for the past 50 years and those to come.
To mark the 50th anniversary Flos is also presenting a futuristic product to begin the next 50 years. The Light Photon lamp, designed by Philippe Stark and using OLED technology, produces light on one side and reflects it on the other, thanks to a mirror-effect metalized head. The base is a single block of stainless steel with an optical sensor that powers on and dims the light. Available from September 2012, this limited edition of 500 pieces will carry a special Flos 50 logo sensor meant as a link between the history and the future of the company.
Support a Kickstarter project bringing remote 360° panning and tilting to iOS devices
From Josh Guyot—Motrr co-founder and designer of Snow Peak’s SnowMiner headlamp—comes Galileo, a 360° degree panning and tilting mechanism for iOS devices. With multiple potential applications, Galileo-mounted devices can be controlled remotely by swiping the screen of a secondary device to pan and tilt. The spherical platform allows for infinite movement and any number of viewing angles. Guyot and partner JoeBen Bevirt also created Joby and the Gorillapod line of malleable tripods, proving their talent for ingenious tech accessories.
While the most obvious application is for video conferencing, Bevirt and Guyot see Galileo as a useful tool for baby monitoring, time lapse photography, iPhone movie making and virtual home tours. Conscious that the device may find other applications later on, Galileo comes with an SDK kit for app developers as well as a mounting screw for tripods and other camera equipment. Also acting as a charging station, Galileo comes with a rechargeable battery of its own for use in any situation.
Visit Galileo’s Kickstarter page to pledge your support and make the project happen, and watch this video to find out more.
Witty cast commentary and Blu-Ray synching in this behind-the-scenes app for iPad
Offering Flying Circus fans a behind-the-scenes look at “Monty Python & the Holy Grail” (now out on Blu-Ray), the just-released companion iPad app “Monty Python: The Holy Book of Days” covers the epic film’s 28-day shooting schedule with previously unpublished content sure to please Python aficionados and pillocks alike. The production story is laid out in animated pages that mimic the movie’s transition screens and title sequence, with interactive bits hidden throughout the app.
Users can browse by scene or production day to find outtakes, film stills, storyboards and original script pages. Terry Gilliam’s storyboards are hilariously brilliant, and actor Michael Palin’s daily filming journal provides valuable insight on making of the cult classic. John Clese provides the video introduction—just a few of the 70 never-before-seen minutes—and all of the Pythons chip in to narrate a day-by-day recollection of the shoot.
Melcher Media’s Charlie Melcher created the app in collaboration with Holy Grail producer John Goldstone to highlight the newest version of the film on Blu-Ray. The companion disc syncs with the app on a Blu-Ray player, letting you keep up on production notes as you watch the film. Using a simple home wifi network, the Blu-Ray converts the iPad into a second screen to augment the film content. Users who are surfing the app can also play relevant scenes on their televisions with a simple tap.
“We wanted this app to not only tell the story of the production, but also be a quest in its own right,” says Melcher. “Storytelling app design is like creating a topography to give your reader an immersive, tactile adventure through the landscape of the story.”
“Monty Python: The Holy Book of Days” is available from the iTunes app store for $4.99.
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