How the Tablet will Reshape the Digital Future of Print.

I feel like a kid in a candy shop right now, with Willy Wonka himself unveiling his latest and greatest fantastical delicacies, one after another.  Right now, we are witnessing a massive change in how we consume media, made possible by the confluence of high-speed wireless connectivity, web standards compliance, new software platforms, and portable, powerful, tactile devices.  And as a designer, I couldn’t be happier, because it heralds a revolution in design, and a brighter future for books, newspapers, and magazines.

One of the biggest web design trends of the past year has been the adoption of print-styled website design. Blame it on the number of laid-off print designers forced to learn the web, but many bloggers in the design community use this trend to great effect. With the implementation of a proper Content Management System (CMS), it is extremely easy to customize the design of each article using nothing else but some very basic CSS styles and a smartly designed page framework. This allows for an incredible amount of flexibility and creativity with a single website, while keeping a uniform framework. 

Sadly, few publications have adopted such an approach. As any magazine designer will tell you, their favorite part of designing an article is creating a unique concept, shooting fantastic photography, and layout out an amazing two-page spread. When magazines came to the world of the web, they ditched their unique layouts and glossy photography in favor of uniform design and teeny thumbnails of PR photos.  And the content was free.  Oops.

It’s easy to see these missteps from today’s perspective, but anyone who’s hand-coded sites in the 90’s remembers how difficult this would be…. from chopping up teeny low-res images into table cells to the general fearfulness of online payments kept magazines from fully embracing this model. The technology just wasn’t ready, and frankly, neither were the users.

Printeractivity: The Convergence of Print Design with Interactive Media

Today, we are ready to embrace a new way to consume media, and the iPad is just the first of many devices creating this new paradigm. Tablets in their nascence are pure consumption devices, built to entertain and communicate, but not really for “work”.  Unlike the bulky, HOT laptop burning your crotch (and reminding you of work), and now have a lightweight, fun, sexy device that lets you listen to music while you read a magazine article, chat online, and change your Facebook status. The large screen and tactile nature of the tablet make it the ultimate eReader, and the perfect vehicle for magazines.

It would be simple for magazines to transfer their existing print layouts to the tablet format. All they would need is an App, and they could charge people per issue. But that would be a mistake.

The web has forever changed the way we consume media, and simply making the PDF available for download is not enough. To make proper use of the tablet format, magazines would need incorporate multimedia and make better use of touchscreen technology.  Print purists may not like this fact, but they will need to accept that users want video, and pictures, and sound.  Imagine a SPIN print article that includes music videos, a video of the band being interviewed, links to the band’s website, pop-up photo-galleries, and perhaps a free MP3 download, or tracks for sale. 

With any magazine comes a couple articles that don’t spark your interest, or conversely, an article you really want to read in a magazine you wouldn’t normally buy. In this case, it would make sense for magazines to make their content available on a per article basis, with some content remaining exclusively for people who purchase the entire issue.  This premium content could include the bonus items, like the embedded videos or the free downloads. While abandoning the ‘issue’ methodology may be difficult, expecting users to stop craving new content presented continuously would be another misstep. The best solution would perhaps make the entire issue available for download on the first of the month, but release the articles starting a week later, one at a time. Surely as this marketplace evolves, the most intuitive yet profitable solution will prevail… we hope.

These new magazine designs will also make use of the touchscreen technology, transforming each page into a unique interactive experience.  The Alice in Wonderland app is an awesome step in the right direction. Take a look:

We’ve gone far beyond design on a page here, and it’s an important distinction. With a touch, a flip or a shake you can unleash a whole new world of interactivity. Imagine the possibilities: children’s books that sing and dance; coloring books you can actually color, save, and color again; finance books that allow you to input custom data and perform advanced calculations; textbooks with form fields, allowing students to submit homework online; how-to books with embedded video demonstrations; magazine articles with real-time social interaction with other readers. The possibilities are truly limitless, and it’s easy to see why designers are so excited.  Each book, article, or magazine becomes a world unto itself, not just plain text on a webpage. It means more work, more money, more freedom, more experimentation, and of course, happier designers. And with each advancement in tablet technology brings with it more possibilities for designers to truly make their mark. 

A Resurgence in Ad Revenues

The brightest benefit for publishers is the return of their revenue stream. The Internet became a graveyard for the publishing industry… but the quality content didn’t die, it lingered near death, became a vampire, and returned to suck the blood from our wallets.  The Internet cheapened content, and did the same to advertising.  Gone were beautiful, witty, print ads and in their place were cheap, obnoxious, obtrusive, and ineffective banner ads, many of which were selling unrelated products or services (Mortgage ads anyone?). Once again, advertisers will be able to purchase an actual canvas on which to create gorgeous, captivating ads.  It will allow publications to charge more for advertising space, and revenues will only increase as more users adopt the tablet format.

Not only will they make loot from the article/issue downloads, but those downloads can include the same exact advertising model used in their print editions, while also opening up new revenue streams.  “Printeractive” ads, like the magazine articles they accompany, can include a full spectrum of interaction. Instead of writing down a URL, or clicking “Learn More at our Website”, the advertisement itself will be transformed into a microsite or vanity URL. It will include video, games, coupons, downloads, and of course, a sign-up form.  Think of the design possibilities… now think about how the publications will charge for each different variation.  There will be a charge for a static page, a charge to include video, and a charge for additional screens or pages within the full page “ad”.  And unlike banners, if this advertising content is relevant and well-done, it will be worth the money.

Other new revenue streams will come via the virtual marketplace, and through collaboration. Take our example SPIN article, which would include links selling MP3 downloads via the publications own virtual store, or via a third party seller like iTunes or Amazon, which in turn pays a referral fee to the publisher.  Even the video embeds in each article could include commercial adspace.

But it ain’t all rainbows and gumdrops…

Surely, there will be detractors to this new “printeractive” concept. Many people will want their books to just be books, and surely the publishing industry won’t risk alienating their core audience. And it’d be smart.  We don’t need video in our Dickens, ads in our Orwell, or a Hemingway coloring book (though a Faulkner Mad Libs could be fun). But there is room for new design techniques to be absorbed, and to help create a completely new method of storytelling.

This is precisely where magazines come into play – their disposal format makes the perfect grounds for experimentation.  One can only hope trend-setting music, fashion, and design magazines embrace the freedom this medium provides. It’s uncharted territory for designers – not quite a website, not quite a print article, though still subject to many of the features, rules, and guidelines gleaned from our experience designing them. It will be very interesting to see the results of usability test on tablet devices, and how that will shape the direction magazine design takes in this new frontier.

With all this uncharted territory, there will inevitably be mistakes, failures, and the occasion abomination.  But if the Internet has taught us anything, it’s that we learn the most from our mistakes. And with these mistakes, there will also be fresh ideas, unbridled successes, and complete paradigm shifts, both in design and business terms.

 
The tablet, with it’s limited OS and App-based software model has potential to wreak havoc upon it’s older sibling, the interweb.  With touchscreens coming to laptops and the exponential increase in mobile computing via tablets and smartphones, the App model is gaining significant traction. Combine that with the growing popularity of Android, the coming of GoogleOS, and the transformation of the web, through the adoption of standards-compliant HTML5, CSS3 (even from Microsoft! Holy Crap!) into a viable work platform, and you have the recipe for a revolution. 

But are we as users ready? And are we as designers and content providers ready to make mistakes along the way?