Recently in Apps Category

Are Magazine Apps Dead?

Are Magazine Apps Dead?

Are iPad apps dead, or do they still have a bright future? This debate has been raging among app creators for some time, especially in the magazine-making world. Robert Newman has gathered some top app mavens for an online roundtable discussion of the current state of the art: Mario Garcia (Garcia Media), David Jacobs (29th Street Publishing), Josh Klenert (former CD of the Huffington magazine app), Jeremy Leslie (magCulture), and Joe Zeff (Joe Zeff Design). They've collected lots of smart thoughts on the Newmanology blog about the viability of apps, the impact and quality of Adobe DPS, why readers have failed to embrace digital magazines, and whether there's a future for art directors in creating them.

This is essential reading for anyone currently working in app creation and design or who is interested in the future of magazine publishing. On the follow page we've got some good excerpts from the app roundtable, and you can read the entire article here.


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The Visual Voice of the Huffington Post

The Visual Voice of the Huffington Post

The Huffington iPad magazine has been publishing a series of smart, engaging covers on their weekly editions, with photo illustration imagery created predominantly in-house by designer Troy Dunham and photo researcher Wendy George. The team has been dubbed #TrendyMagic by creative director Josh Klenert, who estimates that they've illustrated 75% of the magazine's recent covers. "The magazine highlights the best of the Huffington Post," says Klenert, "which means we work on a tight production cycle (and a limited budget) that's in tune with the speed of our website."

(Above): Huffington, December 8, 2013, photo illustration: Troy Dunham. See a cool step-by-step making-of video for this cover here.… MORE
Interview with Tim Moore, creative director of 29th Street Publishing

Interview with Tim Moore, creative director of 29th Street Publishing

Among the most exciting developments in iPad app creation has been the rise of magazine apps that are unique, not based on pre-existing publications or their formats. 29th Street Publishing has been in the vanguard of this movement, creating magazine apps from scratch, and using a native technology that is unlike the DPS-style approach that so many print magazines have used for their digital versions. So far they've done three apps: the Latino sports-themed V as in Victor, The Awl: Weekend Companion, a spinoff from the popular Awl website, and Maura Magazine, a weekly collection of music and cultural writing by critic/journalist Maura Johnston. All three apps have been done for the iPad and iPhone, and sample issues of each are available free from the iTunes stores.

The apps themselves are text-driven (although V as in Victor has sported a very smart series of cover illustrations), featuring a spare, modern design that owes a lot to the look of The New Yorker. The navigation is not as linear and structured as most traditional magazine apps, and features some of the novel approaches used in digital versions of Letter to Jane and Port.

It's no surprise then, that one of the wizards behind this set of apps is Tim Moore, the creative director of 29th Street Publishing. Before moving to New York City to work on the project Tim was the creative force behind the SPD-fave Letter to Jane app, which was produced out of his home in Portland, Oregon. He also worked as a developer with art directors Matt Wiley and Jeremy Leslie on several digital issues of Port magazine. On the eve of the launch of the newest issue of Letter to Jane, and with the debut of the third app from 29th Street Publishing, Maura Magazine, we talked with Tim about his approach to making apps and take a look at some of his creations.



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