It’s some the best newspaper and magazine design I’ve ever seen, but you won’t find it on paper. It’s only available on an iPad.
It’s Rupert Murdoch’s latest news experiment, The Daily. From strictly a design point of view, it’s breathtaking.
"The Daily," a new interactive news magazine delivered only through the iPad utilizes full-size and full-frame photos that must also "work" as a cropped horizontal photo as a full-page image.
Backlit photos explode from the page. Interactive graphics and video seamlessly integrate into almost every story. Even the most easily distracted person becomes engaged as she “flips” through the virtual pages.
But I’m using The Daily with my classes not just as an example of what to do in an interactive environment, but as what to do in a print environment.
Every page virtual page can be viewed as a horizontal or vertical spread simply by flipping the iPad 90 degrees, but photos and stories aren’t simply just scaled to go in the other direction. Every dominate image is recropped and each story takes on a different column width for the new direction. Sidebars and graphics are repositioned to fit the new layout as well, often showing an effective use of white space on the pages. The final result is airy, easy-to-read pages that draw in the zine’s audience.
Flipping through and rotating the pages is an eye opener for fledgling photographers and designers. Close-up, cropped photos on a horizontal page must become full-frame vertical frames in the more traditional magazine format. That means photographers need to take full-frame shots that will work well at full size and still have an engaging alternative crop — a real challenge for some of my budding photogs who are often too afraid to get up close to a subject.
Having the class dissect elements of the page are a fantastic way to teach modular design and really helps to drive home the concept to newbies — which is especially helpful as we begin transitioning our staffs for next year.
Although I’ve trained my students to look everywhere for inspiration, I never suspected the next big thing for print would come from the glow of a tablet screen.
It was a great opportunity for my journalists to practice their breaking-news skills. The fire alarm rang and students processed orderly out of our three schools, but the lack of fire trucks was a tip-off that the San Francisco Fire Department hadn’t called the drill. A reporter overheard an administrator say it was a false [...]
For those of us who are concerned about our students’ work being ripped off and used by others, it seems a bit disingenuous to solicit and obtain one free copy of a book (or multiple books) and then make copies for our students to use. The authors (and yes, publishers) lose revenue and are not compensated for their creative [...]
Wired magazine is in the forefront of making the transition from paper to digital readers. Wired's digital editions include interactive features and video that can't be delivered in a paper-based product.
I finished another class for my MA in Instructional Technology tonight,—an InDesign course with an emphasis on producion for the Web.
Yes, interactive PDFs were [...]
One of our staff reporters was working on a story that was closing just hours before we had to upload our galleys to the printer. She had prewritten most of the copy based on events that had already happened, and was waiting for the final event — a class retreat — to take place before [...]
It’s midterm exam time at my school, and I’m currently proctoring our students whose IEPs or the College Board have granted them extended time. Some also have the use of the computer to help them compensate for dyslexia or dysgraphia, but others are dutifully scribbling away in blue books.
The whole process has me wondering why [...]
iPad. You’ve got to wonder what was Apple thinking.
Did anyone in marketing consult women before slapping a name on a product that had my teenage girls giggling over a “feminine” reference?
And my high school students not alone. Just minutes after the announcement came through, @libbybrittan tweeted:
Any other girls out there having a [...]
As we move into second semester, many of us are already looking into recruiting members for our publications staffs for next year. The trouble is, though, unless we make special efforts to have diverse staffs that truly reflect our school communities, it’s pretty easy to simply take the over-achieving honors students who self-select to be [...]
It wasn’t too long ago if a teacher contacted a student outside of class time, that student was in trouble. Even as editor-in-chief of my high school paper, I never had the adviser contact me outside of school hours.
Boy, have things changed.
With the advent of the 24/7 news cycle, I wonder how we cannot be [...]
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