Mario’s note: Taking the rest of this week off for a few more days of beach before getting back to work! I don’t anticipate any updates of TheMarioBlog until August 16. See you then!
TAKEAWAY: It is a thing of beauty, with content robust enough to let you pick everything from your next winter coat to that special red wine to accompany your summer barbecue, not to mention that you get to meet Angela Markel’s chef, and get a personal tour of Berlin. If “pop up” is what the tablets are all about, The Iconist is a pop up piñata that celebrates lifestyle, fashion and culture. ALSO: Gulf News wins in the Publish Asia 2010 contest.
Add to the list of app favorites: The Iconist
The Iconist.
It was the one magazine iPad app that stopped the show momentarily during The Power of the Tablet conference at the Poynter Institute last June. Everyone wanted to know more about this well designed, content savvy and visually surprising early entry into the world of iPad magazine apps.
Many of the conference participants asked if there was an English version of it. Jan Bayer, of Axel Springer, who was attending the conference smiled and said: Not yet, but soon.
It is here now.
Yesterday, we published the 10 iPad apps that all designers should take a look at. Let’s add # 11, a treat for those who wish to see what can be done with photography, texts, lifestyle content and more.
Because of the success of its German version of The Iconist, Axel Springer recently brought out an English version of this app, published by the German daily, Die Welt.The Iconist is one of the few magazines purely developed for the iPad. Its content is a mix of lifestyle, fashion and culture.
The so called international edition is led by a team that includes Inga Griese (senior editor)
and Brian O’ Connor (creative director) with writers Markus Albers and Joachim Bessing. Their goal is to take the magazine to a wide global audience.
Jan-Eric Peters is editor in chief of the Welt group, and here is how he sees the role of The Iconist:
The ipad allows us to turn the stories in the iconist into a multimedia user
experience. Style and luxury stories have a great emotional impact on a
reader. In the international edition we introduce the user to berlin the home city
of the iconist the exciting capital of germany. our writers guide the user
on an interactive tour of our favourite spots in the city
Inga Griese (senior editor), sees the iPad as a “mobile machine” with an added “fun factor”:
The iPad is the perfect playing field for a product like The Iconist. fashion
and lifestyle are not just a great business model for a publishing company
they also cover an unlimited resevoir of interesting stories and people that
can touch us and establish an emotional connection. The transporter of
beauitiful things is exactly what The Iconist is.
Senior Editor Inga Griese with creative director Brian O’Connor
Brian O’Connor (creative director) is the design man behind The Iconist’s app:
For the user The Iconist is world of entertainment tailor made for the iPad.
For me the project is a wonderful chance to experiment. We decided from the outset to leave the classical magazine structure behind,
no jumping from big to little stories. Interesting is also the workflow: the designer and writer have to work closely together to achieve the best
results.
Brian O’Connor discusses print versus iPad design
Brian has been a print designer for most of his career, with stints at German’s financial daily, Handelsblatt, where he served as art director before joining the Welt Gruppe as creative director, with his major responsibility as design director of the award winning Welt am Sonntag.
His background in print allows him to make comparisons between designing a newspaper or magazine and an iPad app, so I took this opportunity to ask him two questions, which he was happy to answer for us:
Mario: What were the design challenges that you faced here that were new, that you, as a print designer had not experienced before?
Brian:
I think strategically there is always point of no-return in iPad storytelling because of the technical back end and the production you need to know what you want to do and be sure it works, for instance in print you make ideas print them out present them and more often than not have to change a lot that is really not an option at the moment.
Mario: What are some of the design strategies that are universal, work the same for print as well as for the tablet?
Brian:
I have found that print designers and particularly editorial designers have been able to adapt really quickly too the medium, in my view classic Internet designers or journalists have a bigger learning curve, our production company had a big problem making templates that switch from 1-2-3 columns for text, not because it was difficult more so because they couldn’t understand why I would want that. For a print designer it is perfectly obvious “keep the reader engaged”
Brian O’Connor ,creative director for the Welt Gruppe in Berlin, and chief designer of The Iconist’s app, in front of the current issue’s storyboard
It’s Gold for the Gulf News
The WAN/IFRAPublish Asia 2010 Awards are in, and the Gulf News of Dubai , is among the winners.
A proud Miguel Gomez, design director of the Gulf News sends us the happy news along with pdfs of the winning entries. Congrats!
Gold Award
Best Special Section
Manny Pacquiao special
By Douglas Okasaki
Gold Award
Best Infographic
There’s life after Lehman
By Dwynn Ronald Trazo
Bronce Award
Best Infographic
Wild Life Series, Caspian Terrapin
By Niño Jose Heredia