‘Whether you’re an “old hand” (ha!) at tablet design or just starting out, whether you’re an art director, editor, content creator or production designer, I hope that this book changes your life ...’
Here we are, two years into the age of the iPad (and other platforms), and most of the tablet designers I know are still learning on the job. We grab on to any material we can find: random blog posts, panel discussions hosted by the Society of Publication Designers and other professional groups. But there’s no state-of-the-art resource to call on as reference, where smart, visual thinking explains exactly how publication apps are supposed to be created and put together.
That’s why I’m very happy that Mario García has written iPad Design Lab: Storytelling in the Age of the Tablet. New apps designed by new designers are launched every day, and I expect this book will become (at least for a brief time, things changing as quickly as they are) the “bible” of tablet design.
I worked at Reader’s Digest, designing their iPad (and Kindle Fire) app from late 2010 to August 2012. I got the job without having any iPad experience or training, my iPad still fresh out of the box. I owe it all to Mario. In June 2010, he organized an iPad seminar at the Poynter Institute that brought together some of the finest minds then working in the very new field. I was scrapping for work, suffering from the big magazine kill-off of 2009. I read about Mario’s seminar, saw some names I respected, bought a plane ticket to St. Petersburg and ordered an iPad, which arrived the day before I flew down.
In true Mario style, the seminar was a brilliant mix of theory and practice, with people like Joe Zeff, D.W. Pine from Time and Roger Fidler passing along a ton of learning. There weren’t that many people there, maybe three dozen, but I bet they are all creating amazing apps these days. And throughout the whole event there was Mario, the newspaper-cum-digital guru, who effortlessly convinced everyone that (1) they could enter this new world; (2) that it was a great thing, being essentially the logical extension of publication design in the twenty-first century; and (3) that we would all have fun doing it (and maybe make money—but the jury is still out on that one!).
I left invigorated, started studying madly and talked my way into a job at Reader’s Digest by explaining that I had been to an intensive training session led by Mario García. It sounded impressive, and here I am 18 months later, having created iPad and Kindle Fire apps, and working as a consultant on the startups of many more.
This book has a perfect subtitle because Mario has always been a master visual storyteller (and a storyteller in general, as those who follow the elegant and enchanting prose on his blog are well aware). It’s fitting that the person who did so much to bring newspaper design into the twentieth century (they were a little behind) is now bringing publication design into the twenty-first. Mario has been a guiding light for so many of us working in this new field, and with this book he will influence many more. Whether you’re an “old hand” (ha!) at tablet design or just starting out, whether you’re an art director, editor, content creator or production designer, I hope that this book changes your life as much as Mario’s advice and wisdom has changed mine.
Robert Newman is the former creative director of Reader’s Digest. He has been the design director of Real Simple, Fortune, Vibe, Details, New York, Entertainment Weekly, The Village Voice and Guitar World. He has directed and redesigned numerous publications and has been the consulting creative director at Cottage Living, AARP and O magazines. Follow him on Twitter at @newmanology.