iPod Bless America

If you know me or read my blog, you'll probably be aware of the fact that I'm no stranger to portraiture. The power to capture a fleeting moment of a lifetime's personality is a skill not to be taken lightly. Get the glint in an eye or the slant of a mouth wrong or a mis-angled eyebrow inflection and suddenly, the portrait is of someone else entirely.

This pressure to bottle the essence of an individual then apply the visual entity to canvas holds no greater importance than when the subject is the leader of the free world. When Brandwidth were given the opportunity to work with the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC we naturally (but reverentially) jumped at the chance.

So, how do you approach a project about America's figureheads without going over ground already covered by a number of other iPad apps? Well, we weren't keen to take the route of many whereby they regurgitate Wikipedia entries, shroud them in an uninspiring digital interface then spit them back out into the App Store. Others cater directly to the education market and dress the information appropriately – i.e. they appeal to kids, rather than the wider audience.

We knew we had unique (and official) access to a stunning collection of portraits, original supporting documents and artefacts. This wasn't going to be an exercise in creating 'the ultimate resource of all information about the US Presidency ever'. We wouldn't be using this as our catchy headline.

Instead, we tackled the artwork head-on, literally allowing the audience to get closer to every brushstroke in a Retina environment reminiscent of the gallery itself. This isn't a book, it's not a reference guide, it's a virtual visit to the gallery. Head straight to your President of interest or browse the full collection via the gallery's walls, delving further to discover the First Lady's portrait, historic documents, the contents of Abraham Lincoln's pockets, FDR's fireside radio broadcasts, 'Portrait in a Minute' video interviews or images of the Presidential pets.

But it's not all brush strokes and gilt frames. We took a light-hearted approach to learning about the facts behind the faces, with some interactive fun in the Games Room: test tantalising trivia, place the President with the quote and even play Presidential pairs by matching the leader to his First Lady. It's a fun way to learn and as we'll be adding more facts with future updates, the content will stay fresh. In four years, we'll even add another President!

But don't wait for another election, you can take part in a popularity contest via the app! We thought it would make an interesting feature to give you all the opportunity to vote for your favourite portrait so we gave each work of art a 'vote' button. The Leaderboard is illustrated live in the app and votes accumulate on our Facebook page to show the outside world if Washington, Lincoln or Kennedy's portrait is flavour (or flavor) of the month.

Our visit to Washington last month for Barack Obama's Inauguration gave us the perfect opportunity to launch the America's Presidents microsite so I'm not going to use any more pixels here when you can find out more there and download here for the promotional launch price of $4.99/€4.49/£2.99 to Celebrate President's Day.

It's great to finally write about a new app but you'd be forgiven for thinking we've been sat around with nothing to do for the past 12 months – our public launch (i)pad has been decidedly empty. Not so, we've been shut behind a wall of NDAs with some stunning clients and partners from Disney and Warner Music to Apple and Intel. There's a busy year ahead for Brandwidth and the wider technology industry and it remains entertaining and frustrating in equal measures as tech pundits speculate about the 'next big thing'.

Perhaps our next app should be The Vatican's Popes as that seems another hot topic right now...

Face Time

Whenever I lecture on design career paths and take a journey along my own creative timeline, I find that behind the twists and turns there are no regrets. Each new choice has resulted in a fresh set of challenges, life-lessons and opportunities.

Before focusing on graphic design, I had a calling to be an artist. Yes, one of those easel-munching, brush-wielding, weirdy-beardies but before I had a chance to sign up for a fine art degree, it turned out that my original calling wasn’t shouting loud enough and my practicality gene kicked in.

I realised that my enrolment into higher education should result in more than a piece of paper qualifying me to sit in a loft painting priceless masterpieces in exchange for soup and soap. Graphic design would become my friend and provide a sensible wage to supplement cars, gadgets, a wife and children. 

This was the early 90s and the cult of celebrity hadn’t quite become the all-consuming monster it is today. Simon Cowell wasn’t yet selling a dream of fame for fame’s sake so I decided to launch a parallel career whilst at college studying the art of typography, branding and page-layouts. Never one to give up on a dream, I would paint celebrity portraits under the professional guise of ‘Artistic License’.

The fact that I had branded myself as a serious contender opened more doors than a smock and beret ever would. Having worked on a newspaper before starting college also helped, with a group of entertainment journalists (and their contacts) at my disposal.

The first portrait I ever tackled was born from a series of photographs taken of ‘Little Eagle’ – a genuine Sioux chief living and working in... Cornwall. 

This one painting focussed my creative style and began a partnership with guache, pencil and card that would last for the next three years, resulting in commissions for a diverse collection of extraordinary characters, including Chris Eubank, George Melly, Patrick Moore, Michael Douglas, Tiff Needel, Bernard Cribbins, Robert Hardy and numerous leaders within the business and sports communities.

So why didn’t I carry on? Well, the cult of celebrity eventually caught up and PA’s were no longer willing to give the same level of access I had previously enjoyed. At the same time, I had graduated and needed some focus – graphic design won.

This is the point where I usually explain to eager students looking for some direction that each stage in my career has enriched the next. Running Artistic License as a company provided invaluable financial, operational and social experience when it came to starting my creative agency Fijit.

The ability to translate creative thinking into creative communication is a useful skill that has followed me from job to job and I still believe passionately that a designer should always be able to focus their preliminary thoughts into effective imagery. Dexterity with a pen or pencil should always precede the digitized phase on a Mac.

I now struggle to find time to get as ‘hands on’ as I used to. The last portrait I tackled was Tim Burton’s, as featured in my blog entry Gone For a Burton. I am however looking forward to more illustration work in some of our forthcoming Brandwidth iPad apps with innovative storytelling and games. 

I will always look back fondly on the celebrity portrait world and I intend to write more on the challenges, rewards and antics at a later date. Accusations of wrong eye colouring by Bernard Cribbins, xylophone lessons with Patrick Moore or blocking Michael Douglas into Leicester Square with a taxi thanks to our late film premiere arrival – all part of a designer’s rich career tapestry!

Pop Art

If I were to pose the question “what is interactive design?” I would expect the response to be along the lines of “digital” or ‘“websites” or “mobile stuff”. Not an incorrect statement, but certainly incomplete.

Taking interaction back to basics, it’s about creating moments to interact with the world around us in its digital human and physical form.

It’s the paper-based communication that hit the spot for me at an early age. I loved books from the moment my parents started to read to me and, whether I realised it or not, my fascination was with the illustration, materials and feel of each hardback, softback or ringbound volume. This all took on a new dimension with my first pop-up book.

Enter, Fungus the Bogeyman. Raymond Briggs’ irreverent and slightly unsavory tale was my first meaningful pop-up experience (if you’ll pardon the expression) and pulling tabs to raise toilet seats and reveal the monsters within appealed on many levels to a six-year-old.

Sadly, my copy of the ‘Plop-up’ book hasn’t survived, however, the following examples are in pretty good shape for low-tech paper and card.

My renewed inspiration comes from the incredible Commander Nova's Pop-Up Alien Space Station by Nick Denchfield and Steve Cox. This book doesn’t follow the conventional pop-up approach, shunning individual spreads in favour of one spectacular fold-out structure whereby the outer cover folds 360º to sit back-to-back and form a freestanding space station. Additional card figures and pop-up spacecraft turn this into something much more than a book – now we’re really talking about an experience.

Commander Nova is an extraordinary collaboration between illustrator, paper engineer and publisher. I’m glad to say that it isn’t alone. Some other quality pop-ups include:

• The Super Science Book (Kate Petty & Jennie Maizels): Pop-ups, fold outs and a wealth of learning opportunities
• Ships (Robert Crowther): Ships of all shapes and sizes brought to life
• The Time Traveller’s Journal (Prospero Hermes): A paper engineering adventure through the ages
• X-Men Pop-up (Marvel Comics): An impressive example showing how far digital comic books need to evolve if they are to provide a more immersive experience than the printed version
• Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Sharks and Other Sea Monsters
  (Robert Sabuda & Matthew Reinhart): Incredible depth of content with numerous pop-up elements on every page

Photos don’t begin to do the books justice as half of the pop-up experience is in the animated theatre created, first when the book opens, then pulling, spinning or sliding additional tabs. The video (below) should help to bring each book to life.

I still love paper engineering but we’re all too aware of the cost implications, practicalities and longevity of these interactive masterpieces. I’ve been working to keep the dream alive since we began development of the next generation of digital publishing at Brandwidth last year.

We have been looking at the most engaging ways to bring the spirit of the physical pop-up book to the iPad. We’ll be adding as much additional content to narrative but in ways that card hasn’t been able to achieve. 

Interaction through gaming is our first option (see Headspin: Storybook below) where a competitive or educational element can be introduced to certain spreads and sensitively weaved into the storytelling.

Although new research by The Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology claims that traditional pop-up books are a less effective educational aid for children than a conventional text/image mix, I’m not convinced. Learning is achieved through different methods for different children and the younger generation is becoming increasingly proficient in its digestion of multiple data sources and methods of interaction. We shouldn’t forget that a fun experience also encourages a child to return to a book (or app) time and time again.

Multitouch interfaces will help to familiarise users of all ages with content in an increasingly personal experience.

I’m not a believer in taking engaging printed material and simply repurposing it for a digital platform. The technology has to add some value or, as designers, we’re not doing our job.

Having caught up with Steve Cox (Commander Nova) this week, it is clear that illustrators are keener than ever to see their content brought to life in ever-imaginative ways. The iPad provides just such a platform, reuniting creative production with the sense of touch.

It’s time to bring back Fungus in full multitouch glory and recreate Commander Nova with three dimensional pop-up sets providing entertainment and reading pleasure that does the new technology justice.

A version of this article first previewed in Design Week.