Translating Print to Pad

One of the challenges I've been faced with recently in work is to take one of our existing publications and translate it onto an iPad. We had a fair amount of creative freedom with it but it was decided fairly early on that the flavour of the printed version should still remain. 

The DNA of a brand should be the most important aspect of the publication - a reader should be able to pick up any manifestation of the publication and still feel that they're experiencing the same brand. For me, Asos are one of the best examples of how this can be achieved. 

I've taken several articles and shown how they look on an iPad, iPhone and also the printed magazine. The thing that stands out is how consistent and rigid the interpretation of the story has been across platforms. Although I believe that the digital version should bring something new to the table, the brand should always remain in tact.

The danger with having the software to create these digital publications is that the temptation is there to add every sort of functionality under the sun to every page. It's scarily easy to make things fade in/spin around etc so what I like about the Asos magazine is that they've managed to reign it in and actually create something that's quite beautiful and simple. 

We can see that effort has been made to consistently translate the story through to every platform without changing everything up to much. They appear to use a set number of grids that can be applied to most articles and that are used time and time again. By approaching it this way, they've given themselves the ability to churn out (in the case of the iPhone version) weekly edits that are visually interesting but also full of great content.
As a reader, I don't care that I'm not getting something that has been totally redesigned every time a new issue lands. I like to be able to flick through and immediately identify my favourite articles. Updates to design are fine, but I find that constantly having the rug pulled out from under you visually is really off-putting. 

These are my top five take-outs from translating a publication to iPad:

• Keep things simple

• Pick a few strong elements and keep repeating for consistency

• The flavour of the brand should remain in tact

• Interactivity should be decided on early and should always be operated in the same way to avoid confusion

• Grids are your friend. 


Until next week!

Svea xo