IXD304 – Week Seven: The Story of eBooks

In today’s class, Kyle talked to us about the story of eBooks, involving what an eBook is, how to create one, an InDesign eBook walkthrough and storyboarding.

What is an eBook?

An eBook is a non-editable reflow-able book that is converted to a digital format to be read on any digital device such as computer screens or mobile devices.

Characteristics of an eBook:

  • text should be non-editable
  • reflow-able (with an exception of PDFs)
  • formats: EBUP (.epub) , AZW (.azw) and PDF (.pdf)
  • popular eBook devices: iPad, Kindle

InDesign allows you to create eBooks. But you must consider the layout of your eBook, whether you want a single-column grid or a two column-grid. Is your text continuous or is it controlled? A single-column grid would be used more for essays, reports or books. There are also multi-column grids that offer greater flexibility than single or two-column grids. These are useful to magazines and websites. Modular grids are best for controlling the kind of complex information seen in newspapers, calendars, charts and tables.

Kyle talked about Vogue magazine, and how beautiful it is as a magazine in terms of its layout. He asked us to consider what it would look like as a website. I found this interesting, as I have always found Vogue magazine to be very nice in terms of layout, and definitely something I would like to take inspiration from in terms of my own work. Kyle inspired us to take our eyes away from the screen, and look to posters, magazines and physical art as a form of inspiration for our work, as these can be just as helpful as looking at digital inspiration.

Colour can define space, and you can set up colours on a page to attract an audience. There are many different ways to convey information using colour. You should consider the colour palette and typography of each project you work on.

Space can be used a graphical element too, as it is just as important as information or images. By allowing a large amount of space, you are creating drama and focus in your piece. There are times where your work can be more busy, and white space can accompany that.

Storyboarding

Kyle then asked us to create a storyboard of our websites using our sketchbooks, so that we could see the full layout of our work and see how it all looks on paper. This would help us to see any flaws or potential changes that cannot be seen on a digital prototype.

Here is my storyboard that I made in class:



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