Monday, January 31, 2011

Ebooks and the New Year

As designers for print, we've been following the hub-bub about eBooks really closely. This is going to be our year for diving in head first to produce them here in NZ. The biggest obstacle ahead is learning the xml and css coding behind an eBook. Luckily InDesign will do most of this for us. But in order to troubleshoot and verify an eBook, we still have to understand what the #XML@* is going on! So a self-guided crash course in coding is underway at the office.

We are very particular about what a final product looks like (obviously, or we wouldn't be here!) With an eBook, the consumer can do whatever the #XML@* they want to its appearance. So as a designer, building eBooks feels a bit like being a parent...we build it the best we can, prepare it for any situation, and if we've done a good job, it will still look good dressed in Comic Sans. Perhaps that's the mark of success for an eBook designer?

Continue to check back for more updates with our progress on eBooks!