Recently in iPad Category

Who Got an iPad Today?

Everybody knows that today is the day that Apple's third-generation iPad arrived in stores (and on front porches). Were you one of the lucky ones? If so, give us your instant review (in the Comments after the jump) ...

Letter to Jane Fundraiser

Readers of the SPD site know that we're big fans of Letter to Jane, the magazine iPad app created by Tim Moore. So far there have been three issues of the iPad-only magazine, each bursting with visual creativity, exciting videos, cool photos, and interviews. What we especially love about Letter to Jane is the way it exists on its own, separate from an existing print product, and that each issue explores and expands the definition of what a magazine app should be.… MORE

WoodWing + Adobe: What It Means for You

At Day 1 of Adobe's MAX conference yesterday there were two big announcements: Adobe has purchased TypeKit (so get ready to see Cooper Black all over your favorite websites) and Adobe is partnering with WoodWing. The Adobe-WoodWing partnership raises a lot of questions about its impact on the design community. Joe Zeff Design, a Silver Authorized Solution Partner of WoodWing, provides some of the answers. One thing we already know we like is what you'll hear more about after the jump -- "much more accessible for small shops and freelance designers." Here's the full Q&A:

Why would WoodWing join forces with Adobe?

WoodWing's primary focus has always been related to workflow, helping publishers push content to different channels. When the iPad emerged as a new channel, there was no existing solution for publishers to make apps, so WoodWing developed its own. Its partnership with Adobe allowed WoodWing to create a set of tools that worked with Adobe InDesign, and ultimately competed with Adobe's own solution. Rather than continue to compete with its partner, WoodWing returns its focus to workflow with Adobe's Digital Publishing Suite serving as the publishing engine for tablets.

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Six Essential iPad Apps for Type Lovers

The language of magazine design is type. Publication designers have to know a loop from an ear, a ligature from a swash, and Erik van Blokland from Mark van Bronkhorst. Aside from being a spectacular device for news apps (as Mike Burgess, Joe Zeff, Jochem Wijnands, and Michel Elings described at last month's "Indie App Night"), the iPad boasts a number of truly useful tools for letterform education and inspiration. Here's a typographic twist on our ongoing series of essential iPad apps.… MORE

Behind the scenes with Editions designer David Robinson

Editions, the highly anticipated magazine App produced by AOL, Mobile has just hit the App store boasting the tag line "The Magazine that Reads You". It's the first digital magazine I know of that integrates tagging of a user's interests and maps content to those choices offering up a unique personalized magazine every day. Recently I got to sit down with David Robinson, Head of UX & Mobile Design for AOL to ask him a few questions about the process from a designers point of view.… MORE

SPD is on Flipboard!

What is Flipboard you ask? It's a fun way to browse and interact on your iPad with digital content and social media like Facebook and Twitter in a visually driven magazine like format. If you ever dreamed of being an editor, here is your chance, much like popular RSS readers of days past you can choose the content that you want to view and now SPD is easier than ever to find in the design section.

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A Recipe for Hotcake-Selling Magazine Apps

Joe Zeff Design has a smart new post on how magazines can start selling their iPad apps "like hotcakes." They argue for reinvention of the product, and point to the new O Magazine Sketchbook App for iPad as an example. And they also argue convincingly that publishers should be targeting the youth audience as an area of big growth. Their final words: "It is not enough to redesign. It is imperative that we reinvent."
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Joe Zeff Design's First App: Simple and Elegant

Joe Zeff Design has produced their first iPad app, a digital studio tour for Splashlight photography studio. It's simple, elegant, and extremely well realized. Joe Zeff and his crew have been involved in a number of magazine apps (including an animated Fortune cover), but this is the first one they created themselves, developing it with Woodwing. Although it's not a magazine app, there's good learning here in terms of design, navigation, and efficiency (and it's free).

A Tale of Two Free Magazine Apps

While Esquire, TIME, Popular Science, Wired and a slew of others continue to fight the good fight towards creating new revenue streams through charging for app versions of their magazines, there are some publications out there whom have chosen to go the other way (at least for an issue) and give it up for FREE!
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Joe Zeff: A Paper to Pixels Postscript

Illustrator/art director/smart guy Joe Zeff was one of the panelists on the recent SPD Paper to Pixels v2 iPad speaker evening. He passed along the following note he wrote in response to an email from a photo editor who attended the panel discussion:

Joe Zeff: I received an e-mail today from a photo editor who attended "Paper to Pixels v2," a panel discussion on tablet apps presented last week by the Society of Publication Designers. l was among five designers who addressed a packed house on the promise and perils of publishing to the iPad and other tablets. The photo editor sought advice: how to realign his career to best position himself for the opportunities ahead. My response, as it may benefit others who are considering similar questions:

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Thanks for your note, and your kind words about my presentation. You are wise to begin researching ways to break into the new world of multimedia tablets, as they represent the future of our industry. It's still extremely early in the development cycle, and it will likely be another year or two before tablets become commonplace. By then the players will be firmly entrenched, and the winners and losers will be apparent to all.

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