Wednesday, July 13, 2011

An Ex-Pixar Designer Creates Astounding Kids' Book On iPad

By John Pavlus, FastCompany.com

E-books are already a fraught subject for many readers, writers, publishers and designers, but children's e-books are even more so. Is it rotting their minds? Is it as good as good ol' paper? Is it too interactive for their own good? Obviously there are no practical answers to such questions, but at least one children's e-book/app/thingie (what do we call these things, again?) is doing it very, very right. It's called "The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore," and it's like a well-written bedtime story and an immersive animated movie at once -- without being "too much" of either.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore iPad App Trailer from Moonbot Studios on Vimeo.

Part of why the book works so well is its top-shelf creative pedigree: author William Joyce is also an accomplished illustrator and animator who's published New Yorker covers, won a bunch of Emmys, created character designs for some of Pixar's first animated classics, and worked on many others for Dreamworks and Disney. With his cohorts at Moonbot Studios, he created an interactive book-app around the story and a standalone animated film -- so you can experience "The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore" however you like.

READ article on FastCompany.com.

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