tl;dr Back this campaign(http://kck.st/1Z8csKH), and I get to do some really cool stuff!
After working with Ryun on maps and design consultation for his first book, Vanishing Act, he’s brought me on to Living Spirits, and my participation in the project lies in backers’ hands. So far, I designed the backer reward T-shirts and the cover image for the project, but if the campaign meets its funding goals, I’ll be brought in to do much more.
I am excited at the potential opportunity to design the Living Spirits print book, but what I’m really excited about are the digital possibilities. Living Spirits is an opportunity for me to experiment with digital publishing using real, weighty content. I want to create a place where every backer, no matter the platform or device, has a rich, dynamic experience.
Ryun is letting me use his next volume of Living Spirits: Cambodia World of Magic as an experiment--I want to create a new way of looking at publishing. The iBooks, ePub, and Mobi formats don’t allow for the best interactivity: they don’t give us everything we’re used to getting from the web, in terms of interactions and dynamism. They can’t be read in browsers. You can sign up for other services to manage this, but it’s too much, too cumbersome.
Other big issue with “walled garden” publishing ecosystems is the amount of money Amazon, Apple, and the rest take for what’s basically just web hosting. Using a web-based publishing system dramatically lowers the overhead for writers, artists, and designers, and Hopefully making the market for digital publications open can lead to cheaper, yet more-profitable publishing for creators.
But I’m not going to get the chance to do any of this if the campaign doesn’t get funded, so please back if you can (the shirts glow in the dark!) and share with people you think might be interested. I think this project has amazing potential, and I’d love to see it happen.
So please donate to this kickstarter
http://kck.st/1Z8csKH
