Comments on: Designing for the iPad

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 18:48:54 +0000

I've fallen behind on responding to the many excellent comments here. I think the route with designing content for the iPad (and also Android-based tablets) will largely be like Web design. In other words, graphic designers and programmers will have to collaborate to produce the really *good* material. (Rarely is both skill sets found in one individual.) If you're aiming towards e-books, then exporting EPUB from InDesign and then using tools like sigil and calibre can get you on the path to producing a good EPUB e-book. But neither of those tools are all that designer friendly, then again, EPUB is not a design-oriented format. If you're like me and are looking to maintain a level of graphic design in your mobile content, then an app-based approach is best. But that requires some heavy lifting and either knowing programming or teaming up with a programmer. A strong alternative to native apps are Web apps based on HTML5 and CSS. If you're comfortable with Web design then you will really want to look closely at HTML5/CSS3. On the design tools front, I'm hoping that Adobe starts focusing on developing great tools for producing content in HTML5 for mobile devices. That requires Adobe to get beyond their feud with Apple over Flash (but most things people use Flash for can be accomplished with HTML5/CSS3). Maybe the next versions of Dreamweaver, Flash, and InDesign will have many more capabilities for designers. Meanwhile, find a programmer willing to collaborate.

By: Maria

Maria — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 15:24:41 +0000

Wonderful article! Really helpful.

I´m currently looking for what Vann says “…we will need some non-programmer’s tools to utilize, much like graphic designers now have InDesign to create books and intricate page layout, so graphic designers can focus on nice designs and not on figuring out how to program”

Is there such program/authoring tool?

By: Steven

Steven — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:17:46 +0000

What are the authoring tools that are currently being used to create books for the iPad.

By: Phil Seymour

Phil Seymour — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 05:15:49 +0000

I have already begun my first ebook, specifically for the iPad and I have a simple design template for each page that includes photographs, text, video, an audio narrative, and a link to further information.

I have been compiling,(producing, writing?), this ‘book’ about the making of a concert viola, in Pages,(iWork’s word processing software). The idea being that it should make the conversion to the iPad a little easier.

If you have any experience, or suggestions on how to get this multi-media iBook into an iPad format, I would love to hear them.

By: Vann

Vann — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 22:09:49 +0000

There are a number of great comments here . . . where to start?

First off, I do see the possibilities with going beyond a traditional ebook or text books.

For example, in the past I have purchased many of the PeachPit Press QuickStart Visual Guide books mainly because I wanted enough practical information to get me into a topic or to get some code examples, but I did not want a 500 page programmer’s manual.

I could see having built into one ebook multiple views. Maybe a “skim” view or overview read, then when I hit a section or topic I like, I could switch to a in-depth or intermediate view, and lastly a full text view if I wanted to see all the content.

Or, I could see where touching on a symbol or graphic in the the text would pop up an example or code for programming, etc. or step by step instructions.

Regarding book design and ibooks . . . I think we will need some non-programmer’s tools to utilize, much like graphic designers now have InDesign to create books and intricate page layout, so graphic designers can focus on nice designs and not on figuring out how to program.

By: Susan Neuhaus

Susan Neuhaus — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 23:05:54 +0000

“Is that the best we can do, read text on a screen? Personally, I want to use an ultra-modern computing device for engaging with content in ways not possible merely with text.”
At a recent industry roundtable, I heard Charles Nix of the type directors club speak about the design of future books. He divides books into 3 categories: “Meal,” a book that’s devoured, like a novel; “Machine,” a book with a purpose like a guide book; and “Metaphor,” a book that stands for something else, represents a hobby or interest, like a coffee-table book.
While epub arguably makes good “Meals,” perhaps the iPad will specialize in informative, useful, “Machines” and textbooks.
I’m up for giving it a try, sort of like that hive of bees Chondra mentioned!

By: Chandra Coomar (aka chano)

Chandra Coomar (aka chano) — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 12:46:05 +0000

@Marcus
I’ve struggled with the same issue too. In order to be pragmatic I reached the decision that, if I go ahead I will publish books and a single magazine that follow a shared design principle, vis à vis layouts. I decided that I could not compete with the big publishers in a market they understand well. They have pockets deep enough to pursue their vision and their business model. I don’t have the deep pockets and I don’t really like their business model. They can afford to hire the best creatives to produce wildly imaginative new paradigms for magazine formats, dynamic form factors (ouch) and astonishing blends of fixed and fixed and motion graphics. There is a video doing he rounds about ideas in these directions. I was suitably impressed, without a doubt. But even though I’m no reactionary Conservative, my take-away from this showcase demo was….Amazing, but what a horrid, tortured and disjointed reading experience. I half expected to see credits for magazine design by a hive of honey bees on crack cocaine. Don’t get me wrong, as a showcase it certainly demonstrated talent but the result was unfit for its purpose. I don’t suffer from ADD, and so I did not enjoy the experience. Fine work but they tried too hard and forgot the poor reader, who could certainly be cast as bedazzled victim reaching for multiple aspirins,in their dynamag with Hollywood aspirations. I thought the Sports Illustrated proof of concept was better but I really don’t think I want to read a magazine that is so overly ‘designed’ on a regular basis. I say all this as a long preamble to this.
My thinking leans towards an old idea from textbooks of the past. I see this as applicable to a new generation of MM-capable books and magazine where the emphasis is on reading the text easily and with few interruptions and enjoying the MM content, of whatever type, in parallel rather than in series or (no thanks) each component of the content intermixing and (print speak) bleeding across each other.
I know that designers love to design. But good design should not subtract from ease of use, understanding or enjoyment. To me that is poor and selfish design; as in ‘I want to make a design statement regardless of your needs as a reader pressed for time to snatch a quick read’. when text and MM co-exist alongside each other, rather poorly intermingled. I despair at designers who insist on superimposing black text on a dark grey background. Where is the inclusiveness in that. Anyone whose eyesight is unable to resolve poorly differentiated text, will simply give up in despair.
I want to design for the broadest audience. I want clear, clean layout with al kinds of variety in content but laid out in ways that enhance their enjoyment not compete for attention and result in page after page of busy busy busy.
I’m also aware that I am not a designer and I do not mean to demean the work of any designer. I only suggest that generous design never loses sight of the reader. As a writer, I took advice from a writer of books on writing to be aware of whom I as writing for. He suggested that if you wanted to write for the whole world, it was best to befriend that everyperson known as Abdul Fiona MacWong. I have never forgotten that advice.
Apple goes far to make allowances for people with visual or auditory disadvantages. Why should we produce books or magazines that move in the opposite direction. Unless we’re publishing pure indulgences for our own pleasure, we should design for everyone, for legibility, for comprehension and for simple, uncluttered enjoyment.
As I said in my pevious response, I’m working on software that allows some design freedom, but is aimed more at ease of production, a clean design look and the easy, reliable of text and any kind of MM content running in parallel, not fixed or floating in the text stream. The result is fine. IT’s never going to be an InDesign. It will grow in design flexibility, but it will never be a page layout app.
I developed it for books, but it would be fine for A4 magazines. I don’t want to go larger than that because I know I will lose customers if I get a reputation for forcing them to spend half the reading time scrolling around to appreciate any kind of ‘broader’ vision.
My email is ccoomar@aol.com. If any of you have comments I’d be interested in hearing them.
There will be a rising tide of small and self-publishers. Apple has many reasons to back up its iBooks Store and ensure its iBook app becomes a standard that makes it straightforward to produce attractive, stable and flexible designs for ePublishing.
If this was a rant. It’s over.

By: chano

chano — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 11:34:59 +0000

This is a really interesting post and I’m glad I came across it, although that happened by accident. Thank you so much. Your thinking, and that of many of your respondents, matches my own. I too was looking for a way to publish on the iBooks Store for the iPad and the iPhone too. I don’t rate ePub highly because it seems less useful that the Apple free app for Macs – TextEdit, which seems to work the same way in freely flowing text as you resize the window. But ePub seems so clumsy in its handling of graphics and it doesn’t seem to like other MM content at all. PDF is great in term of fidelity to the designer’s vision but I don’t know how well it can be copy-protected and, for me, that’s important as I have writers and creatives around the world who deserve to make a living from their contributions.
I’ve experimented with other programs and have created an app for publishing and another, which is a development tool for writers – it’s for developing their written work with built-in tools to assist the writing and researching processes. It’s not an app development tool!! I’m n the process of deep-testing both apps and, while they have some limitations, I think they produce results that are better and more useful to readers than ePub does. I won’t say this categorically until I have iBooks and can learn what Apple have done to improve ePub, or Apple finally starts to release info about it’s capabilities and applications. In any case, it will be at least three months after that event, before I am ready even to think of releasing my apps.
Which leads me to a question one of you may be able to answer. Apple speaks of iBooks as a free app that can be downloaded to read eBooks. But I’ve also seen references to the iBooks app being able to create eBooks. Does anyone know if this is true? I guess that all these book publishers must have been given advice and conversion too apps, by Apple, to ease the path to iBooks compatible results for their titles. Apple is so tight-lipped on information about iBooks the app and the Store.
Any thoughts, anyone?

By: Stephen Tiano

Stephen Tiano — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 04:22:55 +0000

A day or two after the iPad launch I emailed Apple and asked whether they had any guidelines, or plans for guidelines, that would give book designers some sense of path in designing eBooks for the iPad. Initially, I, too, am interested in interactive non-fiction books that allow the reader to hook up with more–in fact, multimedia–information on what they’re reading about.

I got an acknowledgment of my email another day or two later. And nothing since.

Perhaps many, many freelance book designers ought to email similar queries to Apple. I’m not sure I see the iPad getting much of a push from simply repurposing the works of major trade publishers. I really think its future lies in new work from independents working for al kinds of publishers: big, small, and self-.

By: Josh Gilpatrick

Josh Gilpatrick — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 04:17:59 +0000

I’ve been searching the internet to find someone who shares a certain vision of mine. As a student, I would love to see text books become as deep in media and interactivity as you are describing, but I’ll be out of school by the time the fun interactive textbooks ever come out.

What I want to see, however, is a platform for narrative fiction that interacts with you, leading the reader through various mediums into the story. I want to see the first page of my story, the part about sitting on a bench watching a sunset. I want to see this page with black text on a background of pink to blue gradient, mimicking the sunset that I describe. As the reader continues to read, the colors change, just as the sky in the story would. When the reader gets to the part where I talk about the insects buzzing in the trees, I want the reader to slowly realize that he is can hear, faintly, the chirping of locusts. I want music to stir and swell at moments and when the customer finishes the page, I want the text to be white on a background of a starry skyscape.

I used to want to be a filmmaker, but since it takes an army to make a film, I decided to just write literature instead. Now I wish there were a way to create a cinematic experience out of reading a book. I think, perhaps, its possible.

One thing makes me doubt, though. One time, when I was a kid, we found the chasis of junked go-kart. We were excited at the possibilities and potential the thing held. We began toying with it, adding discarded lawnmower wheels to it, a plywood exterior, and about the time I was contemplating the logistics of putting in a motor, I realized that I was making a junky go-cart. This was disappointing because in the feverish excitement when I first claimed the scrap metal in the first place, my intentions, in no certain terms, were to make something spectacular. I realized in a classic sobering childhood moment that no matter what I did, I couldn’t get away from making the junky go-cart anything other than a junky go-cart.

Maybe a book is a book and a movie is a movie and never the ‘tween shall meet. I hope not, though. ‘Cause I’m getting the iPad and if this ‘tweener technology flops, so goes my hopes for cinematic literature as well as my $499.