Monday's iPad conference was a day full of inventive, creative people in the magazine industry, but one of the more memorable panels for me was with the ESPN crew. The presentation was full of interesting perspectives on this new platform for magazines.
ESPN's Rob King compared the expectations of mobile and tablet apps to that of his young son's first experience with elevators. Even after his son returned home and was no longer able to use an elevator, the expectation to have one to use was still there because he had had it once before. King explained that the idea of an app is the time – when you can get it first somewhere, there is an expectation to get it anywhere.
The group also discussed the idea of "you selling you" when it comes to conceptualizing content for any platform. They explained that all of the successful apps stem from this idea. Many aspects of the ESPN brand are prime examples of this. Take, for example, ESPN's ScoreCenter mobile application. The app is all about customization and personalization to give you instant access to stats and up-to-date scores on your favorite teams and players, based on your settings. The same goes for Pandora, TweetDeck and Starbucks apps, for example – the app's content is all based on your likes and dislikes, favorites, suggestions based on those likes and dislikes, etc.
These two notions truly altered my perspective and thought process for conceptualizing an iPad app and its design.
Watch the recorded sessions from the iPad conference here.
[YOU CAN'T MISS]: A Life of Looking's mini-makeover
I decided it was time to give my blog a little TLC. I took out the busy, stock image as the background and opted for a cleaner, more reader-friendly design. I also recreated my blog's banner to add a little more context to my blog's content and purpose, and switched out the previous font for a more tailored and suitable font for the blog title. Ultimately, I'd like to take more time later on in the semester to add even more design elements and personality to my blog's design, but in the meantime, I thought it was in need of a change. What do you think?
[YOU CAN'T MISS]: Blog design of Vox magazine's VoxTalk
I thought I would give this opportunity to make sure you are becoming regulars on Vox magazine's new blog – I have to admit, it has exceeded my expectations. As a web producer for the scene department for the magazine, I spent my entire weekend posting movie reviews to the blog from the weekend's True/False Film Fest, so it's possible that my fondness for it grew simply through hours poured into it over that three-day period, however, its daily presence can't go unnoticed. Not only is their new content daily, but the variety of content and voices on the blog is impressive – so impressive, I thought it deserved a shout-out. But on more design-related note, not only is the blog's layout easy to navigate, but its logo and banner treatment serve as a great visual representation of the blog and its intended audience. The logo itself is very "Voxy" – clever and to the point. See it for yourself, visit VoxTalk here!
So I really like the makeover of your blog. It's definitely you're style. The subhead works well to give context to the blog. I can't wait to see what you come up with later if you ever get a second to update again.
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