Art Desiging an App: Meet the Art Director, Beth Lower

As I wrote in last week's post, How Many People Does it Take to Build a StoryApp?, producing a good StoryApp can require a pretty extensive, and expensive, team.

In addition to the work of the author, illustrator and program developer, you may also need a UX (user experience) designer or a game mechanics expert, depending on the features and navigation you wish to include in your app. If you're developing for children, you may need the help of an educational consultant to ensure that your content is appropriate for the development age and/or to create related curricular materials. And if you don't have a mechanism in place to market your app, you will, most assuredly, need a publicist as well.

But the one person you can absolutely not live without is your Art Director.

I'll never forget the moment when I realized just how true this is. I developed Beware Madame La Guillotine on a shoestring, as you know, and therefore hoped to get away with using Apple's palette of preset buttons, icons and other graphic elements. But when my programmer sent me the initial mock ups, I couldn't believe my eyes.

Several "u" words came immediately to mind: unbecoming, undesirable, uninteresting, and unpromising were among them. But the word that really screamed in my ears was "ugly". It was not unique. It looked like most of other apps in the App Store.

In walked Beth Lower, graphic artist extraordinaire. Beth is an acclaimed Art Director, well known in the magazine world. She came to my StoryApp eager to learn all she could about app development and ready to apply her already proven graphic design skills to the digital environment.

We still had to cut corners from a financial point of view. We used Apple presets in the static content of the nav and tool bars, for example. But all dynamic content in the body of the app, such buttons, text layout, illustration set up, graphic icons and maps -- you name it -- were realized thanks to Beth's artistic eye and creative contribution. I look very forward to collaborating with her again.

View Beth's Online Portfolio Here

How Many People Does it Take to Build a StoryApp?

Once upon a time, stories for children were published as books. The realization of these paper-based creations involved two distinct phases that could take several years to complete. The editorial team, comprising a writer, an editor, an art designer, and an illustrator, fed the fruit of their combined efforts to the production team that delivered so many copies per print run, per edition.

This is still the way books for children are produced today. And it will remain the process for many, many years to come. Because it works.

For books.

But there is a new(ish) kid on the virtual block: the StoryApp.

To realize these electronic creations the production process speeds up with production and editorial teams working in lock step. New editions are possible with the click of a few buttons. And the creative team expands, adding to the editorial ranks described above the following contributors:

• a program developer (i.e., coder);

• a user experience (UX) designer to work with the art designer to develop the user interface (UI), or navigational path, especially if the StoryApp is non-linear;

• a game developer, if the StoryApp is to include interactive learning elements and features;

• an animator, if the images are to move;

• an educational consultant to assure that the app is developmentally appropriate to the target age and intuitive to use; and

• a marketing and branding guru to ensure that people know the StoryApp is out in the world and how they can access it.

Some of these people might double up on tasks, of course -- the UX and gaming professionals might be the one in the same, for example. But you get the point:

It takes a lot of people-power to realize a great StoryApp.

And unlike their print cousins -- some of which require no artwork and all of which require no thought to intuitive userability as everyone knows how to turn pages -- all StoryApps require art, illustration, graphics, and design. For digital formats are highly visual.

Which is why StoryApps can be so expensive darned to create. Especially good ones.

Using a program developer, a basic utility app will run you about $5-10K. A robust StoryApp, however, like Beware Mme la Guillotine, A Revolutionary Tour of Paris, that includes interactive elements, intuitive navigation, and learning tools built in, will run you anywhere from $30 to $130K.

Ouch!!

But there is hope on the horizon for independent StoryApp publishing startups and independent authors and illustrators. This past April, at the Tools of Change in Publishing conference at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, I made a point of compiling a list of all the companies present who are now promoting StoryApp Publishing Tools for publishers and do-it-yourselfers, alike.

Click here to access the list.

I will be updating it periodically, so please subscribe to my mailing list to ensure that you know when updates are available.

Keep on creating!
The world needs that special creation
that only YOU can conceive!

Sarah

Why Every Creative Person Needs a Website

Let the brainstorm begin!
Image courtesy of shutterstock

The Big Reveal

I've concluded, Dear Reader, after considered reflection, that I owe you the truth. Indeed, there is no better way to set off on this journey than with a big reveal:

Though my first StoryApp iTinerary, Beware Madame la Guillotine, won numerous prizes and enjoyed critical acclaim, it has not yet achieved commercial success. (Emphasis on “yet”.)

Why? The reason is due simply to my own fatal flaw: I knew nothing of the importance of marketing before the initial launch of the app.  

And it is precisely this flaw that I intend to confront and overcome -- even befriend -- as I turn the page on the next chapter of my personal, professional and creative adventure.

I welcome you to join me. To wrestle this minotaur together...

Digital Publishing is not a "Build it and They Will Come" Proposition

When I embarked, way back in 2009, on my expedition across the digital divide, I believed I had entered a field of dreams. But publishing in the digital landscape, it turns out, is not a “build it and they will come (read: buy)” proposition.

I didn’t know about branding and positioning then. I didn’t know much about app development either, to be honest. But I put one foot in front of the other, month after month, and figured out what I needed to learn, and do, in order to publish in both the App and iBook Stores.

It was a lot like birthing a baby. I prepared myself only for the delivery, putting little or no thought into how I would feed and diaper the tyke once it was in my arms. Indeed, it wasn’t until July 26, 2011, when Charlotte’s story finally appeared in the App Store, that I said, “Yikes!” (Actually the word I used was much more colorful and best avoided in a professional forum such as this.)

“Now I’ve got to sell this darn thing!” (As you can imagine, I didn’t really use the word “darn” either.)

By then, it was too late. A wet nurse was summoned during those first critical weeks. Thankfully, the baby thrived. But despite the encouragement that came with each new accolade, I am chagrined to admit that the past few years have been a slog.

The Best Life Lessons Are The Valuable Ones

Yet, the experience taught me a valuable lesson:

Those of us attempting to carve a niche in the digital world and to earn a living from our creative endeavors – I’m talking writers, illustrators, even candlestick makers – must be willing to market. And I mean ourselves. Not just our titles and products.

(Emphasis mine.)

If that strikes you as anathema, Dear Reader, I empathize, for so too did it once strike me. But the fact is that no one else is going to market for us -- not publishers, not editors, not anymore.

And, ironically, the more we are willing to play the game, the more likely they are to pick us for their team.

The Good News is: Entrepreneurism is Creative

To survive in the digital world, creative people must think and act like entrepreneurs. We must have an online platform with which to engage a public. And we must be prepared to do this well before we have anything to sell, or even launch.

I needed a platform back in 2011. And this is precisely what I did not have. So when Beware Madame la Guillotine launched, guess what? There were relatively few people out there to relish the news with me. And they did. And I love them for it. But they were not enough to help spread the good word.

(Of course, there were other issues too, like the difficulty of discoverability in the App Store, but we'll leave that topic for a future post.)

As it turns out, though, thinking like an entrepreneur is fun. Time-consuming, I'll admit. But fun. And creative. Every bit as creative as the writing process. For it's just another type of creative process. 

So, Why This New Website & Blog?

A year ago, more or less, I realized that I needed to build an author platform and a following before spending any more time and money developing additional eBooks and apps. (There, I’ve said it. That's why there have been no new TTT&T titles since Beware Madame la Guillotine.)

That’s when I realized that you could have the most brilliant gem of an app in the App Store (like BMLG *wink*cough*wink*), but if no one knows it’s there, it’s not going to do you, or anyone else, any favors.

That's when I realized that the website I'd built for Time Traveler Tours was working very hard to sell a $5 product while all that I had learned and accomplished in the process of producing it was buried in a pull down menu.

That's when I realized -- and forgive me the use of contemporary internet parlance here -- that I needed...

(sucking in breath and holding it)

...Well... that I needed to brand me.

A New Journey Begins...

So, to borrow a favorite cliché from my former musician’s tool kit, I went back into the woodshed and I reworked my chops. The result: This brand new shiny website and blog. My next chapter.

The rest, we'll just say, is backstory.

With this new site, I officially hang my digital shingle, once and for all.

With this new site, I embark on a journey to...

• Share with you, through blog posts, interviews, reviews and video tutorials, the benefit of all that I, and others like me, have learned through first-hand experience about trans-media storytelling and publishing in a digital world;

• Offer you the opportunity to share your stories and insights so that I, and others like you, might learn from your lessons and respond to your comments and questions;

• Initiate a helpful working dialogue for all.

Let's Do This Thing!

So, eager converts and reluctant digital warriors, I invite you to cross the threshold into my online community education center and store. Consider me a mentor in your personal quest. Use the information herein to help set you on your digital way, efficiently and effectively, whether you are building your first website or launching your next digital project.

“Those of us attempting to carve a niche in the digital world and to earn a living from our creative endeavors – I’m talking writers, illustrators, even candlestick makers – must be willing to market. And I mean ourselves. Not just our titles and products.”

— Sarah Towle

So keen am I to help you avoid the missteps I've taken and the mistakes I've made that if I don’t have the advice, tools, strategies and services you need right here, then I will find them. This is my promise to you.

And in return, I hope you won’t mind if I promote my own projects from time to time, when the opportunity arises and is warranted. 

May all our adventures in the digital landscape be fruitful.

Please add a comment with your thoughts and/or questions.
Let’s make history together!