Visual Editions

0:12I'm Anna I'm Britt and we're from visual additions we have been around for about nine years.

0:24Now we started as a more traditional book publisher making very untraditional books you might remember tree of codes which is a book literally full of holes that help launch us a little while back.

0:41This is our studio space tucked under the Westway I think we can talk about ourselves as being a creative studio publisher and reading lab the reason is that we found they do being a publisher be limiting so we called a publisher for about seven years.

0:59And then thought frankly it we don't wanna be a publisher anymore we still are we still publish books in fact we've got to show your book tonight that we relaunch today. So we set up.

1:08But we also do an awful lot of stuff with partners where we just can't try and create stuff that lives behind in this cross section between design between publishing between tech between culture which we think is a really exciting place but lots of stuff happens that we hope create magic for our audiences so today also happens to be a day where we just launched a new book called breathe and it's part of a wider platform called editions at place we thought we tell you a little bit about this first and then.

1:46And then we'll get into some of the kind of behind the scenes of the making of this book. So editions at play is it's a space it's a project it's an idea that started a couple years ago with tea you glow from Google Creative Lab in Sydney and and it you know we had this we had this maze conversation a lot of our conversations start with wouldn't it be cool if or what if you could make a space where you just explore and play with what's possible in the world of digital books because at the time it felt like there were PDFs on the one hand that were kind of translated into digital books and then.

2:32There was the Kindle which you know does its thing. But isn't delightful or magical or special so we thought how can we bring some of that delight and magic into the world of digital books so that was this the literally wouldn't it be cool if starting point conversation and what's been borne out of that is this fantastic project ongoing platform called additions at play we talked about it as bringing together a love of literature or a love of reading very cool technology because we're working with the guys at Google Creative Lab who definitely have cool technology at their fingertips and new reading experiences because for us it's really about making stuff that audiences are interested in so it's not technology for the sake of Technology it's not you know experimenting for the sake of experimenting it's really doing stuff that hopefully people enjoy and are surprised by and and and even maybe a little inspired by and one of the things. That's quite different about it compared to other kind of book projects that we've been involved with in the past is forges that play we involve the author's very very early on so you got authors working with developers and designers and ourselves as part of the lab and it's a very different way of working we're quite often as we hope to show you a bit it's it's not a linear process and it's not smooth it's a little bit annoying at times as well for everyone involved and we end up pissing off lots of people in the process but the idea is that we get to attack to explore stuff and try out new things it's also very importantly that's free yeah yeah all the books are available for free so if you wanted to start getting a little distracted as we talk now we're totally fine with you getting your phone and checking out our latest book yeah maybe not yet maybe we'll tell you when is the right time before you do that we just thought it would be interesting to talk through the journey of of of that these books have taken so we're seven books in to these play books but to two years in time yeah seven books two years yeah and so the first phase this is this is a whiteboard from super high tech workshop we had at Google where we talked about what felt really important to us and and you know this looks like it's been tossed off.

5:14But actually.

5:16This is about six weeks game three points yeah and what came out of all these workshops and all this thinking was oh my god books are really important to how we want these digital books to feel and look and be experienced so what does it mean for these to be bookish which kind of feels like a lame starting point now that we think about it but at a time and feeling felt so important so we kind of boiled that down or try to unpack that. And we were like okay.

5:48So for these new cool magical awesome digital books to be bookish they've got to be mobile first a lot of that thinking was which we still believe in yeah right yeah this this idea of like a bit like a penguin pocket book that you flip out of your pocket and you read anywhere the idea of you know flipping your mobile phone out of your pocket and reading that anywhere being transported into another space we were so obsessed that we're still a little obsessed yeah with it books having pages I yeah and the idea behind do you want to talk about the Oh you're clearly over your so the idea behind the books having pages was okay. So if it's a book then it's got pages which means it's not a film which means it's not a video game which means it kind of has a frame. So it was all this thinking around what gives these experiences a vessel I guess so like a border to the experience we're less obsessed with that.

7:02But it's still there still there.

7:04But the third point is really important it's all you know dynamic qualities and what does that mean essentially means that the technology we use to create these books are books artists web sites essentially but they use everything. That's inaudi on your mobile phone so nothing is to be invented the only thing. That's very inventive maybe how we combine the technology that's there how we use it.

7:23But it's not new technologies is what anyone could use and importantly it was all about. And this is the whole dynamic thing it was all about. And it still is about making books that can't be printed so going back to tree of codes we were really excited back then of like okay.

7:39So you make a book. That's totally die-cut you can't possibly recreate that experience in any digital form and we wanted to invert that and be like well. Actually what could you do that's digitally native that you can't then transfer into print that we're still that was it yeah that's still important this in the first phase behind books like books they went through that told a story through Google Streetview or a book where the text was feed then it sort of unstable as the main character became unstable and he's started falling apart. So that was a kind of the first phase yeah and the second phase we've just come out of it some a face we're exploring can you create digital stuff that's free and still make it capable something that people really want to keep can you make it a limited edition can you do that but anything digital that's free so we spoiled that through two different ways and one way was the one to the right left that's the blue side welcome to universe explodes a book of richly written by by tea aglow and he's basically a blockchain book it's a book using technology a Bitcoin we call it culture chain and we think it's the first book experiment to use blockchain we're also really proud of it being included as one of the top 10 fastest from last year's that's pretty cool but there Davis that you distribute through blockchain but also you engage with it through blockchain so you have to edit certain worse in there which means every single copy every single version of the book this unique so you don't have any ownership of a book.

9:15That's the same as anyone elses so is it was just an experiment it never went to the end of the blockchain essentially got really expensive for Google because of the whole blockchain bubble so I got too expensive to keep distributing was kind of funny and unexpected and the other thing we experimented with about keeping books keep all this digital with this one called seed by jana walsh where we had a fantastic interest rate on board they're almost use some of the kind of you like old-fashioned crafts of illustration and creators hundreds of illustrations where you saw the book wilting s you were reading it on your mobile phone and we were yeah that's fine I'll leave that cut this ticking clock okay.

9:57So if you're interested in seeing the book as we talk about it grab your phones and the URL is breathe - story calm and we'll talk you through it.

10:15But it's kind of we were just talking earlier about like oh it's so hard to really capture these books without experiencing them firsthand because of all the stuff we just talked about you know they're dynamic they're magical like stuff happens as you read it and with this one in particular each reading experience is actually unique so have a play as we ramble through yeah basic ghost story it's a ghost story featuring the catechol flow who can talk to ghosts and it's a book that is a totally personal experience created in partnership with ambulatory and with the creative labs obviously and it changes depending on where you're eating at we are with you in your room we hope you could have been a bedroom we could be anywhere what time of day it is what the weather is like what street you're on.

11:08So it's something that we think it's the quite an intimate reading experience you go well what if one of the Thunder the starting points from when we started talking to Kate pull injure who wrote the story was she was like you know there's loads of geo-located stuff projects that use our outside environments that use like streets that were on that used the outside world to kind of as the starting point to investigate these projects and and she was like wouldn't it be cool actually if you inverted that and make that an interior world.

11:46So the character is meant to be very much in her bedroom inside and you as the readers except for you now will be at home obviously experiencing this book in your own bedrooms so that the idea is that it reflects the characters experience has reflected in the readers experience and that. That's an interior inner kind of world thing.

12:12So we were really interested in in exploring that using all the tech that's typically used for outside environments and in amongst all that the story is interrupted by different ghosts we've got different kind of ghostly behaviors and it's using all the tech of what mobile phones can do to kind of get in the way of the reading experience we thought we show you a little bit about the inside if you like of created laps and certainly it's such a it's such a funny relationship because they're 12 hours ahead of us all the time.

12:45So we're always behind we're constantly behind which can be really really frustrating but on the good hand is we're working on the books 24 hours a day but also everything is done on on Google Hangouts so we work with us in London we got Kate and in bath and in London we got ambulance showing Bristol then we got the developers and designers in Sydney this is one of those kind of you know very collaborative projects where you got to make sure that every single person is involved at the right time and feel like joint ownership the right time as well.

13:15And it can be really really messy these are some of this we just thought you know we were kind of digging through some slides and thinking okay what would be interesting to share with you guys that that normally or typically we wouldn't share and this is one of the really early just visual mood boards and you know it's we talked so much about the behavior that the book has and the reading experience but there's also of course the whole visual language that needs to capture the spirit of the writing but also the spirit of the reading experience and and that we need to get right from the outset so there are a lot of kind of parallel things happening and creating the right kind of visual feel for the book is really really important so these are some colors that we were looking at but also mood and feel and typography as well and and you can see some of the influence of these things in the final book.

14:16This is another idea that we ditched okay yeah basic couldn't do it that they're difficult sometimes because everything is done in parallels we've got the author writing book keep writing the book because testing out prototypes oh good signs came up with ideas sometimes you've got ideas which sounds great in theory like this one we wanted the book to be responsive to your car environment as a reader so if your bedroom had a certain car lever went to the book to reflect that compared to another reading read own another kind of bedroom with another color scheme but where this went wrong weirdly is that most color palettes were really dull and brown so when we did it like this we were like oh my god I'd be amazing but that's like you know from Pinterest it's not it's not a real library so that's why we did stuff a bit beige so what we learned instead was could how could how can the camera work what can we do the technology of the phone to kind of trine and make it personal so this is just the again example of what we were thinking about what kind of views the camera can have how the ghost could come into the screen how we can see elements the bedrooms the use of e-reader would be a no in this case I think must be Google's desks right yeah must be yeah with a beer bottle and then.

15:38That's the final thing.

15:41So the the final if you like look and feel of it is this where we have an element we can see what they've the ambition was of the this was a pinkish colors schemes and what we aspire to do but in no way does it look like this an initial idea of let's make it all really driven from your bedroom and pimp interest into your phone but the final thing is this.

15:57And so it's a very intimate bedtime story it's a book the call the book that comes to you because you feel quite haunted by it both from the behavior of the book on the phone using the technology of the phones and your environment but also the stories a narrative or flow being haunted by five different ghosts and we'll leave it there we were kind of thinking it might be interesting if if you guys fancy having a play with the book when you get home and you want to take a screen grab of that initial first screen in your room and you want to send that to us and you're fine with us sharing that then you know. That's cool thank you thank you [Applause]