Only Dead Fish

On The Future Of Feature Writing

Multi-chapter, multimedia, highly immersive digital features from publishers seem to be becoming quite the thing. The latest is the rather lovely ESPN Grantland story of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, which follows on from their similar feature on The Long, Strange Trip of Dock Ellis. Then there was the beautiful Pitchfork cover story on Natasha Khan which wonderfully integrated text, imagery and audio.

And this example from Outside magazine, which graphically tells the story of an early ascent on Everest, is notable for incorporating third party commercial sponsorship (albeit in a pretty clunky way).

The best known example is the New York Times' Snowfall of-course, which integrated video, images and graphics in a seamless, flowing narrative. And as The Atlantic described it, did it in a way "that makes multimedia feel natural and useful, not just tacked on".

Inevitably some have lauded Snowfall and its ilk as the 'future of journalism', but others have pointed out (mostly on Twitter at the time) just how time and resource intensive such projects can be. How can Snowfall be the future of journalism, they say, when it took six months and the involvement of 16 people to produce?

I think that kind of misses the point. To paraphrase The Atlantic, Snowfall (and others like it) are not the future of journalism, but that's OK. Snowfall recently won the Pulitzer for feature writing. This kind of reader experience where one element flows seamlessly into the next is uniquely suited to longform feature content (and to creating immersive feature experiences on tablet devices), and I'd argue far less suited to punchier, news driven content. Snowfall was produced as as the result of an off-and-on project, and an almost documentary-style approach outside of the realms of that which was possible with the normal CMS.

As the skills of journalists develop, as the shape of the skillset in media organisations expands to encompass new design, video, and graphics skills, as commissioning proceedures change, as integration with third party tools improves, as CMS's develop to enable a greater, more intuitive use of multimedia content, this kind of immersive experience will only get quicker and easier to do.

In the meantime, it's a good time to experiment and learn. Andrew Kueneman, Deputy Director of Digital Design at the NYT said of Snowfall: "In the long term, we also walk away from an effort like this with many valuable lessons in design, development, team collaboration, editing, promotion, etc.—lessons we can apply going forward, and ones we could only learn while working on deadline."

So whilst this kind of thing might not be the future of journalism, it is surely at least part of the future of journalism, and a potentially quite significant one at that. This kind of mixing of traditional writing skills with techniques that are more akin to filmaking enable a far richer pallette for features writers. Given that, I'm really surprised that we haven't seen more magazine publishers experimenting with this type of approach.

HT @Mrjamescarson for the Outside link

Layar And Magazines

People have been trying for years to crack the idea of creating some kind of interplay between print media and screen media. Unfortunately most of the offerings that people have come up with have never acheived any kind of traction, mostly because they've been simply too, well, clunky. I remember some extremely enthusiastic people coming to see me in the early noughties with a product that involved the reader having to hold their magazine up close to a PC webcam so that it might read a bar code embedded in a print ad (I remember thinkng that by the time you've done that, you might as well have typed the URL into your browser).

So we've been left with the modern version of that - QR codes - that as any print Art Director will tell you can look rather messy on a carefully crafted magazine page layout. In order for this sort of stuff to have any value at all, it's got to involve as negligible an amount of effort as possible on behalf of the reader, and be simple, intuitive and seamless.

Of-course when augmented reality came along, some were quick to create examples of it working with magazines and print ads, but they've still felt very gimmicky in a way that Layar's new version, demonstrated above, does not. Not that I think for a minute that anyone's going to read a whole magazine with their phone held up in front of it, but I rather like the idea of creating dynamic tags that enable me to buy stuff I see in a fashion piece (in reality I'm not that fashionable), or see an accompanying video to a print feature on my phone should I wish. Perhaps this sort of stuff is starting to come of age.

HT Hugo Rodger Brown for the link 

News+

What would a newspaper look like if it was invented today? That's the question that Bonnier have asked themselves and it's a good one. Because the answer is quite possibly not much like the current crop of digital news apps. Almost a year ago, Bonnier collaborated with BERG for a pre-iPad re-imagining of the digital magazine. What I liked about it was that it didn't make the mistake of trying to impose inappropriate analogue features onto a screen based digital experience.

Similarly, there's also a lot to like about News+. Like the fact that they have advocated a 'third way' that differs from both the traditional newspaper and the web, but combines editorial curation with plenty of opportunities for social curation, interaction and conversation. Publishers have seemed very keen to develop apps which look great, but are relatively closed systems that box content in and speak of a desire to control. It's almost like they're already forgetting the digital lessons that have long been so painful to learn.

News+ concept live from Bonnier from Bonnier on Vimeo.

Cooking Dinner With The iPad

Early iPad content apps seem to have suffered from a McLuhan-esque propensity to consider a new technology through the lens of the old, and what Jakob Nielsen called a 'crushing print metaphor'. There's perhaps an inevitability to the inconsistency in usability that Nielsen described, but the iPad is a re-imagined interface, and so requires re-imagined formatting of content.

Award-winning photographer William Hereford has created an experiment combining the kind of typeface you typically see in quality magazines with video which has been shot and edited to feel like a still photograph. Says William:

"My hope is to develop this video to work with tablet computers so that you could "swipe" between the vignettes instead of them playing with a rigid sequence from start to end. Tablets (and the internet really) provide the opportunity to look at moving images with the same studied intensity as a still photograph. Traditionally we are at the director's mercy regarding when a shot begins and ends- the whole experience is fleeting, which can be wonderful , but I like the idea of creating a moving image which runs on a loop or is shot over a long period of time so the media can be consumed and studied in ways a traditional film cannot."

Video, combining with photography, combining with print. A recombinant media experience. Surely we should be seeing more experimentation like this from established content producers?

Cooking Dinner Vol. I from William Hereford on Vimeo.

HT

The First Digital Magazine

 

So, back in December the Swedish publisher Bonnier collaborated with designers BERG London to conceptualise a vision for digital magazines on touchscreen devices. They did a pretty decent job - the most compelling vision, I thought, amongst a rash of others that were around or have come out since.

Well now the vision has been brought to life in the form of an iPad app for Popular Science magazine, called Popular Science +. With only 60 days available since Apple announced the iPad, they've had 6 editorial teams in 3 countries working to re-imagine the form of magazines. Popular Science+ is available now in iTunes but a preview (below) has been made available at the Bonnier Beta Lab.

As before, I like that they have deconstructed the magazine form and reassembled it with a design vision that captures some of what makes magazine consumption such an inherently unique experience, and balanced it with the particular attributes of digital consumption. To paraphrase Sarah Ohrvall at Bonnier R & D (who kindly sent me a note about the launch) rather than producing what BERG call “a wrist screen running clock software”, they have built the watch. The real question is how ready publishers (with already stretched resources and long priority lists) are to serve another platform. For those lucky enough to already have an iPad, you can download the app here.

Mag+ live with Popular Science+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.

Re-Imagining Books

 

Image courtesy

"We're going to see new forms of storytelling emerge from this canvas. This is an opportunity to redefine modes of conversation between reader and content. And that's one hell of an opportunity if making content is your thing." Craig Mod

Next week I'm going to an event on the future of publishing where my good friend Gerd Leonhard will be speaking. The publishing industry is not exactly lacking in challenges and disruptive innovation right now, with the emergence of self-publishing platforms, rapidly evolving retail models, and new applications and platforms that facilitate an abundance of new ways to tell stories many of which don't require publishers. So it was good to see Penguin re-imagining the forms that the content they create might take as forms of interaction change, facilitated through new technology - in this case the iPad. Good because this requires thinking about the content in its most basic structure and constituent parts and how those parts might recombine to inform, delight and entertain in totally different ways. As Jeremy Ettinghausen says, it's no longer enough to tinker with the ways in which books are sold and distributed - new interfaces (like the iPad) require a rethink of the very structure and form of the content itself, and how people might want to interact with it.

iPad iMagineering from Penguin Books on Vimeo.

In this excellent post on books in the age of the iPad (HT David Hieatt) Craig Mod talks about the difference between what he calls 'Formless Content' and 'Definite content'. The former, he says, doesn't have an explicit form, is divorced from layout, and can be 're-flowed' into different formats without losing any intrinsic meaning. The latter has a well-defined form which means it might be reflowable but in doing so the inherent meaning and quality may shift. At the most basic level, the former could be most novels (which are pure text), and the latter could be text that is formatted with images, graphics or charts.

 

Image courtesy

The difference between the two is in the interaction of the content with the page in that Formless Content doesn't see the page and its boundaries, whereas Definite Content is not only aware of the page, but embraces it, and shifts, reshapes and resizes itself to fit the page:

"Put very simply, Formless Content is is unaware of the container. Definite Content embraces the container as a canvas…something with dimensions and limitations — and leverages these attributes to both elevate the object and the content to a more complete whole."

The current crop of e-readers can only cope with Formless Content. The interesting thing about the iPad is that the size and versatility of its canvas allows for well considered layouts - in other words Definite Content. And of-course in this context it's interesting to think about the implications for that other print medium that relies heavily on Definite Content - magazines. Magazines are lucky enough to be imbued with non-physical qualities and meaning that are conveyed through their physical form - the thickness, weight, smell, feel of the paper. The act of turning pages. The page as a canvas on which a good Art Director can convey meaning through layout and design, through the use of typography and colour, through the juxtaposition between elements on the page, the flow and pace of reading created by density, length and layout, the signposting, the bits that are deliberately left with nothing on them, just white space.

But it is a mistake to thoughtlessly replicate compositions, formats and layouts that have been designed for print. It may sound like an obvious thing to say but I'd argue that the history of content on the web has proved McLuhan right, that new technological environments are commonly cast in the moulds of the preceding technology (page-turning technology for example - I was never a fan of it on the web, and now there's even less reason to be - it's not the best way to navigate electronic content and imposing artificial 'page-size' boundaries to interrupt the flow of content makes little sense).

Instead we should embrace change. The internet will not kill print. Some forms of print - most likely those where the content has a intimate, inherent, complementary relationship with it's physical form - will live on. Craig Mod argues that Formless Content will go digital, and Definite Content will be split between digital and print. And that when we think about producing a book, we should embrace, exploit and be confident in its physicality. Make books that are built to last. Books that "feel whole and solid in the hands…smell like now forgotten, far away libraries…be something of which even our children — who have fully embraced all things digital — will understand the worth…always remind people that the printed book can be a sculpture for thoughts and ideas." Anything less, will soon be forgotten, ignored, or superseded by the march of digital progress.

Jeremy Ettinghausen paraphrases Buckminster Fuller: "Keep doing what you've always done and you'll keep getting what you've always got". I'd go further. Ignore change and change will ignore you.

Gerd has kindly given me a limited number of tickets to the future of publishing event to giveaway. It's being held on Friday 19 March 8.30am - 12.00pm here in London - if you're interested in going along e-mail me on the link above and I'll give you the necessary details.

Mag+

Below is a conceptual video (HT to Katy for the link) created by BERG London and the (Swedish publisher) Bonnier R & D team demonstrating a potential vision for digital magazines. I really like it. I like it because it strikes an excellent balance between attempting to capture some of the unique aspects that make reading a magazine a singular experience (some of the physicality, the visual signposting, the rich and immersive imagery and writing, the sense that you are consuming a curated, complete package) whilst reflecting the very particular attributes of digital consumption.

And I like it because it doesn't make the mistake of trying to innappropriately impose individual features from one medium to another. One of the problems that I've always had with the digital magazine 'page-turning' technology that a lot of people have got very excited about over the last couple of years is that it does just that - taking an analgue format and function (page-turning) and forcing it into becoming digital, creating a clunky, inapropos digital user experience (and one which Jack Schulze of Berg rightly says is "not honest to the form of the screen"). Thankfully Berg have gone the opposite way, actualising something that creates a better and more believable user experience for magazines than the current crop of e-readers, and one that I can envisage working well on a tablet platform. Good stuff. You can give feedback and join in the conversation about it here.

Mag+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.

Magazine Cover Of The Year

Every year the Magazine Publishers of America run a little award for the magazine cover of the year. These were the winners from last year. As awards go, I rather like it. Magazine covers are a consistently underated form of design IMHO, and there's real skill in combining aesthetic impact with consistency of brand image and sellability on the newstand. As with many things, it's about combining unique knowledge (of your prospective reader) with great (design) talent. The shortlist has been selected by the American Society of Magazine Editors. The magazine buying public are voting the winners. And here's two of my favourites:

Getting Wired

Day one of the UK edition of Wired. So I bought a copy. And to be honest it was pretty good. Highlights included Russell's column ("I'd like to suggest that multitasking and distraction aren't the enemy - they're what makes us human and creative - and...we should be building software tools that distract us more, not help us to concentrate"). And knowing my prediliction for them, Ramzi Yakob had already let me know that there were some good data visualisations in the launch issue on the size of the internet connections between the planets major cities (thanks Ramzi). I really hope it succeeds. But of-course, as Ramzi also asks, the real question is this:

The Perfect Magazine

David Hepworth on magazines:

"My suspicion is that if a reader could design his perfect magazine he probably wouldn't like it. The whole idea of a magazine is that it's a compromise between what you expect and what you don't, between what you like and what the other person likes, between things that confirm what you have always thought and the odd thing that gets right up your nose."