05/11 Mon
Introduction to Digital Publishing
Class intro:
- syllabus overview
- digital publishing initiative at cmdc
- dpi research: workflow, reading design, distribution
- we will publish your research and essay in the dpi journal
Talk:
- digital publishing crisis/opportunity
- web, epub, kindle, pod
- publishing workflows
Digital publishing overview:
- academic: Living Books About Life, Scalar, multi-format
- commercial: Or Books, Where You Are, where-you-are.com
- kickstarter: Mcsweeneys, a-spiders-heart, Ya Sama! The Story of Tatyana McFadden
- self-publishing services: Dog Ear Publishing, Pressbooks, Leanpub
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Research:
- blogging: 500 words min.
- Multi-format: markdown, html, epub, kindle
- Multimedia Remix: multimedia remix
- Hybrid project: pdf, print/digital relationships, qr codes
- Final Project: design prototype and 1000-2000 word research essay
- brainstorm ideas now: genre categories, methods, reading design
- share skills/ publishing team
Final Project research ideas:
- marking time: video blogging as art practice
- nouspace – digital arts journal, mobile writing
- dpi journal – collected research
Make a blog post: introduce yourself and describe the area of digital publishing that interests you most.
05/13 Wed
Publishing and Networks
read:
blog prompt:
Select two quotes from the readings that stimulate your thinking about the future of digital publishing. Using the two quotes as the start of a blog post (use blockquotes), discuss some of your ideas about digital publishing and what it could become.
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Gutenberg Project
Terms of Use
Reusing Gutenberg Texts
Public Domain, Creative Commons, Fair Use
Formats
Gertrude Stein, “Tender Buttons”)
select some text (500-1000 words)
working with digital text:
working with digital images:
- photoshop/illustrator
- gif animation: gif-brewery, gifs with photoshop
working with digital video/audio:
- adobe premiere/ imovie
- audacity
- html5 audio/video tags
- miro converter >mp4
Add images (public domain or creative commons license)
Project 1: Translate a plain text public domain story or poem into html, epub and kindle ebook. Include at least three images with the text and a cover image.
05/18 Mon
Markdown/Markup: Structuring Documents
read/view:
- HTML5 Explained in 3 Minutes
- HTML Basics (explore as example of educational publishing)
- DIGITAL PUBLISHING TOOLKIT-ePub | PDF (read as a reference for making epub, kindle files and using markdown)
blog prompt:
Describe your idea for the first project: to create an ebook from public domain documents. How will you structure and organize your book? How will you use design (typography, spacing, imagery) and/or annotation to make this a unique publication?
(There are limits with image files in ebooks, so don’t be too ambitious!)
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Building ePub structure:
Pages workflow: good to generate epub files, section and page breaks, <h1> = chapter breaks and toc, clean up html/css
Markdown:
Macdown (mac) | MarkdownPad (pc)
word processor>texteditor>markdown>html>xhtml >epub>kindle
Opening epub documents
- pc – change “epub” file extension to “zip” and then unzip it, do the reverse to close.
- mac: use ePub Zip Unzip
- download sample
- META-INFa list of all the root files > container.xml
- OEBPS:Open eBook Publication Structure is an XML-based specification for the content, structure, and presentation of electronic books.> (html, images, css)
- mimetype (the type of file – epub)
- toc.ncx (xml file that contains the table of contents of the EPUB file)
Creating ebook structure:
- cover: dimensions, ppi, cover.xhtml
- chapter: chapter-1.html, chapter-2.html, etc.
- creating sequence, breaks: toc.html, toc.ncx
- html anchor links for navigation (notes, etc.)
- other pages: title page, table of contents, copyright info, notes, footnotes
- metadata goes in contents.opf
- images: style images with css (max-width: 100%), 300ppi, 600px x 860px for full page
Parts of a Book:
front matter:
- Title page
- Copyright page / ISBN not necessary for ebooks
- Copyright Acknowledgments (cite sources)
- Dedication
- Table of Contents
- Foreword (someone other than the author)
- How-To-Use-This-Book
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- About the Author
main body:
- Parts
- Sections
- Chapters
end matter:
other elements:
- Images
- Graphs/Tables
- Visualizations
- Galleries
- Audio/Video
ePub Resources:
epub>Kindle:
- Open Kindle Previewer (alias)
- How to make a Kindle ebook (simple tutorial)
- Kindle Publishing Programs (resources)
- Kindle Publishing Guidelines (complex tutorial)
05/20 Wed
Designing eBooks
read:
- Hack the Cover
- Practical Typography
a web book on typography, read Typography in 10 minutes and consult other chapters as resource - CSS Basics
if you need an intro to styling HTML - The Shape of Design
just look at the design, inside the epub and its web presentation. also, if you can, open to examine the epub files.
blog prompt:
Do a google search of book covers and choose 1 or 2 that you think would work well to market a book across mobile devices and the web. What qualities about the icons/covers make you want to open it? How can an icon/cover and other book cover matter (title, image, summary, excerpts, blurbs and branding) attract attention and interest differently in a digital and networked context?
Please post the images of the book covers with a citation link.
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Creating the cover and design elements:
The Shape of Design
Covers:
Image:
- Enclose images in a <div> or <p> tag.
- Make “img” fill the container with “width: 100%;”
- Set desired width to the container <div>.
- Prep images at 300ppi and desired dimension
- 600px x 860px for full page.
- GIF animations work!
Section breaks:
- sections automatically create a TOC and a sequential order though distinct xhtml pages
- in Pages you can insert a section
- the “Title” style on text will automatically create a section
- an <h1> in the html will create a new section but its place in the TOC will need to be manually added.
- an <h2> will generate a chapter heading in the table of contents under the section
Page breaks:
- to control the flow of content – like images- you can add page breaks in Pages. This will add an html element into your ePub file with the css: break-after: page;
- you can also add your own CSS:
"break-after: page;" and "page-break-after: always;"
"break-before: page;" and "page-break-before: always;"
Create landing page for publication (from template)
Social media & publishing, branding
05/25 Mon
Memorial Day
Project 1: Translate a plain text public domain story or poem into an epub and kindle ebook. Include at least three images with the text and a cover image. Present the files and your cover with a description of the book on a landing page. Use this html template to design your landing page.Put everything in a folder and upload this to the server.* Send me the url.
*If you have trouble with this part, I can help you before class on Wednesday
DUE: WED 05/27
Instructions for uploading your projects to a server using an FTP (file transfer protocol) client:
- Download an ftp client. These are free: Cyberduck or Filezilla
- “Open Connection”
- Enter the following info:
servername: dtc-wsuv.org
username: first initial + last name + the year (’15”), all in lowercase, no spaces or symbols (so, “Sam Jones” would be “sjones15″)
password: last 4 digits of student ID - If successful, you should be in your personal server directory that has the same name as your username. Now you can either drag the folder and files in that directory or use the “action” menu to “upload”
- Please upload folders with your project name. Lowercase with no spaces!
- Inside the folder, make sure that your default/home page for the project is “index.html.” The server will automatically load files named index.html.
- Now check how everything looks live, at the absolute URL that looks something like this: http://dtc-wsuv.org/sjones15/yourproject/
- If you cannot see images, make sure that your file names and calls to access those files are all lowercase. Servers are case-sensitive!
- Post that URL in a blog post
05/27 Wed
Multimedia Books
read:
- The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens – Scientific American
- Hyper and Deep Attention, Katherine Hayles
- Can Being Distracted Be a Good Thing? Cathy Davidson
blog prompt: Are multimedia, links, interactivity and sharing essential parts of the way we use texts today? Are they distractions that take us away from the immersive experience that we get from books? Reflecting on the readings, what is “screen reading” to you? How have your reading and writing habits changed with the web and mobile devices? In what ways can design of digital texts create “hyper” and “deep” attention.
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DUE: Project 1 (make a blog post with a link to your project page)
Discuss readings
Design for Attention and Distraction
- create good distraction
- capture attention
- hold attention thru small distractions
multimedia journals:
- http://www.ubu.com/aspen/
- http://www.westspacejournal.org.au/
- http://infinityskitchen.com/
- http://www.aci-iac.ca/
- http://sensatejournal.com/
multimedia essays:
- snowfall
- south-china-sea
- marcus-garvey-park-2
- map of lost souls
- time wastes too fast, Maira Kalman
- scaleofuniverse
fiction and poetry:
- The Truth About The East Wind
- Green Green Mud
- Electronic Literature Collection, Vol 2
- Dreaming methods
- The Oatmeal
- Maira Kalman
- oh no, everything is wet
digital collage texts
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Multimedia authoring tools:
Project 2:
Make a multimedia, collage text about a favorite book, movie, album or art work. Use any combination of image, text, maps, video or sound to express your thoughts and associations about the work. Gather material distractedly with google search. Don’t think too much. Discover what your text will be in the making of it.
06/01 Mon
read:
- The Virtual Codex from Page Space to E-space, Johanna Drucker
- How We Will Read, Clay Shirky
- iPad and Books, Craig Mod
blog prompt: In The Virtual Codex from Page Space to E-space, Johanna Drucker suggests that the design of digital books should focus less on copying what a traditional book (the codex) is and more on what it does. The codex is already a “virtual” reading space. As readers we “perform” a cognitive engagement with the material by using the affordances of the codex (page numbers, tables of contents, headers, page breaks and graphic images) to construct meaning. Shirky and Mod also come up with some thoughts of how digital affordances allow us to think in new ways about designing reader interfaces. As a university student asked to read many kinds of texts for classes, discuss your ideas for specific features of digital books that would be most helpful to you in engaging with knowledge and ideas. These features might include social annotation, pagination, navigation, interface design or the use of multimedia.
Multimedia Books 2
View class eBooks:
- Caleb Carrol
- Cody Moncur
- Dan Asbridge
- Danielle Beyrooty
- Jason Wendland
- Kyle McGee
- Lindsey Parker
- Natalie Hendren
- Sarah Thurman
- Suhaily Erkkila
- Warren Marshall
Discuss readings
Designing for deep reading – pagination, scroll vs. swipe, formless vs. defined content, chunked content, white-space, images, responsive design
- ipsi- paraphrase chapter
- iBooks Author – tutorials, examples
- The Boat
- Inside the Story (zip download of pdfs)
- Abookapart.com
- fivesimplesteps.com
Introduction to Scalar and Pathfinders project
Brainstorm final project – idea>team workflow>platforms>launch
Project 2 Workshop (phase 2):
Based on your multimedia collage, write an accompanying short text (1000 word min) that expresses your thoughts about how the art work holds your attention. Does the work encourage “hyper” or “deep” attention? Or both? Format this text inside of the collage in a way that encourages reading in association to the media.
Project 3: Digital/Print Hybrid
Translate the collage and text from Project 2 into 3-5 PDF pages.
Visit Electronic Literature Lab – intro to Pathfinders launch
Final Project: A multi-format publication or white-paper about the main design issues around digital publishing. This will be a collaborative text. Everyone will contribute content and ideas, but the book will collect class contributions as well as outside quotes, examples and resources.
Content Sections/Chapters
- Introduction to project – Will
- annotation and social reading – Caleb and Dan
- pagination – formless/definite, scroll/swipe – Natalie and Cody
- design – chunking, typography, imagery, graphic elements – Sarah and Danielle
- digital book covers – Lindsey and Suhaily
- multimedia – hyper vs. deep attention – Jason, Kyle and Warren
- documentation – Warren
- Hybrid Publishing – publication studio
Design and Production
- Design – images graphic elements, multimedia Sarah, Suhaily, Danielle and Warren
- Editing – copyediting, organizing text, chunking Lindsey and Natalie
- Production / development – ebook, ibook author, web and/or pdf – Caleb, Cody and Dan
- Social media – everyone
06/03 Wed
Hybrid Publishing
assignment: Work on Project 2
read:
- Post-digital Publishing, Hybrid and Processual Objects in Print, Alessandro Ludovico
- Search Compile Publish, Paul Soulellis
blog prompt:
Using at least two quotes from the readings, discuss the ideas and/or works of hybrid or “post-digital” publishing. Why are artists “printing the web” and finding ways to embed digital processes into publishing printed books?
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Discuss readings…
print-on-demand services:
hybrid / post-digital publishing:
- servinglibrary.org
- libraryoftheprinted
- hybrid_publishing_toolkit
- http://www.badlandsunlimited.com/
- betweenpageandscreen.com
- Vanity-press-plus-the-tweetbook, James Bridle
- American Psycho, 2010, Mimi Cabell
- A Series of Unfortunate Events, Michael Wolf
- Frankenstein, Ben Fry
- Mcnugget, CHRIS ALEXANDER
- Palindrome, Federico Antonini
- Random Wikipedia
- Chance Books, Paul Soulellis
QR codes:
Final project discussion – subject areas/ assignments
collaboration tools: google docs/dropbox
Work Flow
text: word processing (spelling and grammar checked) > plain text
images: photoshop/illustrator > 72ppi and 300ppi
put everything inside a zip folder by Monday June 15th
Scalar – start
Project 2 Workshop
Project 2:
Phase 1- Make a multimedia, collage text about a favorite book, movie, album or art work. Use any combination of image, text, maps, video or sound to express your thoughts and associations about the work. Gather material distractedly with google search. Don’t think too much. Discover what your text will be in the making of it.
Phase 2 -Based on your multimedia collage, write an accompanying short text (500-1000 word min) that expresses your thoughts about how the art work holds your attention. Does the work encourage “hyper” or “deep” attention? Or both? Format this text inside of or with the collage in a way that encourages reading in association to the media.
06/08 Mon
Hybrid Publishing 2
assignment: prepare your group’s section
read:
- InDesign Tutorial (TBA) – view videos for #2. Essentials for beginners
- The New Art of Making Books,
by Ulises Carrion/adapted Amy Suo Wu
blog: Post the url of Project 2 along with a brief statement.
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DUE – Project 2
Project 3: Digital Print Hybrid
Translate Project 2 into 3-5 pdf pages.
Changes in project points.
Grading group projects
Getting started:
- Prep images: 300ppi / approximate in inches for width/height
- Any text that is not an image make into a .txt file
- Start InDesign and set Magcloud presets
Useful InDesign tutorials:
Save your .indd project into the shared dropbox folder. I will compile as one document and export to pdf.
DUE – Project 3 (pdf pages) by the end of class
Final Project – groups discussion?
06/10 Wed
Publication Studio
read: explore the Publication Studio website.
blog: write three questions for the field trip to Publication Studio
Visit to Publication Studio
meet at 11:30am – finished by 1:30pm
try to car-pool!
Publication Studio
717 SW Ankeny St
Portland, OR 97205
(503) 360-4702
Final Project discussion
06/15 Mon
assignment: finish writing and gathering material for sections
blog prompt: Share your thoughts about the visit to Publication Studio. What do you think of their business model? What are your thoughts about the social aspects of publishing, going to art residencies, collaborating with institutions?
(if you were not on the field trip, write a post about how you think the final class project should be marketed)
Final Project
Discuss Publication Studio and book
Design and Build
06/17 Wed
Final Project
assignment: gather/work on design elements for your publications
blog prompt: Share your thoughts about the workflow of this collaborative publication in general and about your own experience working with various software/formats. This short reflection will go at the end of the documentation section of the book.
Finish and launch