Inkling: Curiosity

Curiosity
Inkling Company Profile
Director of Photography
Produced by Actual Films, 2010

We started with a vision for a better textbook: one that was interactive and engaging, one that took advantage of the opportunities afforded by new media like iPad. But we aren’t just reinventing publishing, or reinventing the book. We’re reinventing the way people learn.

When we set out to design Inkling, we thought about the assumptions people make, usually unconsciously, each time they create or consume a book.

Take the concept of a page, for example. A page is a block of content divided by what “fits” into a given physical space. If you’ve ever done an essay for a course, you’ve probably changed the amount of content on a page by changing the line spacing or changing the font size. But the page itself rarely represents a semantic break in the content. That is, a page is a page not because it makes sense for the content itself, but because that’s just what happened to fit.

Enter iPad. There’s no such thing as a page. There’s a 1024 by 768 screen that can change in response to your fingers. There’s a display instead of ink. There’s memory instead of paper. There’s a world of new opportunities, and whole new set of constraints.