We’ll soon be releasing v0.2 of Storybird, including some great upgrades to our core application—Storymaker.
The new engine features:
¶ Thumbnail previews: double-click to preview a thumbnail
¶ Visual Typing: image thumbnails are surfaced based on keywords in your story
¶ Multi-position art: art can occupy one of four crop styles and up to 7 locations
¶ A new dock: pictoral page icons, page re-ordering, and enhanced page controls
Click the image above to see the new dock—it’s gorgeous.
Really. There should be a guild for him. Something we could join to have meetings and pay dues. He’s that good.
Forget Don Draper and Sterling Cooper. Joan Ganz Cooney was the advertising master of the 1960s, using commercial aesthetics (telegraphic ideas, fast cuts, and jingles) to create a product that reshaped the DNA of Western culture. Hats are off to you, Ms. Cooney. Happy 40th Anniversary.
Storybird is looking for a print, fulfillment, and customer service partner (one company, not three) that can support our print-on-demand requirements and grow with us globally.
If you rep a company that can meet our needs—or are a designer/client and buy print-on-demand and fulfillment services and have some suggested suppliers—we’d love to hear from you. You can reach us at: partners [at] storybird [dot] com
Here are some details:
Apparently, you* and Bono have more in common than you might think.
From an interview with writer Chuck Klosterman about how the world’s most famous band made How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (and all their other albums):
“The songwriting process worked as it normally does for the band: The Edge brought in guitar demos, the band collaborated on the sonic skeletons and turned them into U2 songs, and Bono added the lyrics at the end.” [Emphasis ours]
At the end, folks. That means the ideas and words behind With or Without You, Where the Streets Have No Name, Mysterious Ways, One, All That You Can’t Leave Behind, Vertigo—the soundtrack of the last two decades—were an afterthought. Not thoughtless, mind you. But constructed and added after the musical scenery was in place.
We see this blueprint everyday on Storybird. Illustrators like Paul McDougall, Victoria Usova, and Irisz Agocs are like Larry Mullen, Adam Clayton, and The Edge—arranging, composing, and issuing narrative art like chords, solos, and drum beats. And then, strutting into the studio with sunglasses that never come off and a carefully distressed leather jacket, come writers like Tara Lazar, missK, and Nyx, studying the structure of the work and arranging their ideas to suit the tempo or mood of what’s been established.
The results are fabulous. These guys are belting out stories that rival contemporary youth and kid’s publishing just two months since our release. And we’re only at v0.1. That’s like a four-track analogue recording studio. Wait till we’re all digital multi-track and have chrome espresso machines in the studio.**
The best part, if we want to extend the music-making metaphor, is that Storybird is also like karaoke or Rock Band, embedding the basics of publishing into a game platform that kids can master instantly. So not only are we getting stories FOR kids/young adults, they’re also being made BY kids/young adults. Just check out this four-parter about BFFs or dealing with the arrival of a baby brother. These kids are kid-litting it from the ground up, narrating a first-hand account of their world while having fun and finding their groove.
So go Bono. Walk on. Get one step closer to knowing. And be one. ***
…
*People who make Storybirds. **This is a metaphor. Storybird does not serve coffee. ***This is a terrible ending. It does, however, lend itself to rocking-good links.
The Belchanator! with bonus story on Storybird
Embeds are now available for all public Storybirds in two sizes: Regular (above) and Large. They work like YouTube, Vimeo, and other Flash-based embeds. Simply grab the code, drop it in your blog, and presto! Storybird magic.
The controls are simple: a retractable panel has forward/backward arrows and a toggle for full-screen. And if you don’t use the fwd/bwd arrows and just click on the story, it advances forward.
You’ll find the embed link above the cover, beside the sharing tools:
Here’s the embed page. Copy the code for the size you want:
Currently, Storybird embeds work on Blogger, Typepad, Wordpress.org (self-hosted), Tumblr, Ning, and most other platforms that accept standard HTML. They do not work on Wordpress.com blogs yet.
Oh—we also have goodies at the bottom of each embed page: badges!
Badges link back to Storybird.com rather than a specific book page or profile. Stick ‘em on a sidebar or footer and spread the goodness like karmic peanut buttah.
Nice people have been saying nice things about us since v0.1. Here are a few from the blogosphere and Twitter.
“I can’t think of a better way to encourage literary exploration, artsy fun and new media skill sets to inspire a whole new flock of creative storytellers.” Shaping Youth
“I played on the site for hours. Days. My daughter begged, “Mommy, can we make another Storybird?”” Children’s writer Tara Lazar
“It’s a wonderful idea for families, a great resource for artists, and exactly the kind of responsive, user-centered cultural outlets that media literacy types are calling for.” Gamine Expedition
“Simple to use and endlessly extendable.” The Digital Narrative
“An ideal site for teachers and families.” FutureLab
“What could have have 12-year old boys fighting to write poetry? Storybird.” Beth Holland
“Six hours ago I had never heard of Storybird. Now I’m hooked.” Dominic McGladdery
“I didn’t know I’d have so much fun creating stories.” The Book Chook
“There is nothing like the feeling of seeing your art being used by people—especially children. When I read the stories that people have made with the help of my paintings I get that warm and fuzzy feeling of accomplishing something important.” Artist Victoria Usova
“Storybird is simple and intuitive enough to encourage read/write thinking and action in the youngest of Internet users, something we applaud and encourage.” Read Write Web
“One of the coolest websites ever created for children, families, and classrooms.” San Francisco Examiner
“Ingenious…for creating a beautifully designed book with your kid’s own story.” cool mom picks
“They say that everyone has a story in them. But setting out to write a story can be a daunting experience. Wouldn’t it be so much easier if you could make that journey with family and friends?” BBC
“Two thumbs up!” The Gadget Show
“As a parent, it’s fascinating and exciting (and impressive!) to see what your kids come up with.” Five Hens
“Brilliant concept, design and idea. I was just floored when I saw what you had done. So simple for students to get right in and enjoy the process of writing.” ihancock
“You don’t have to stock up on expensive books for your child to learn to read. All you have to do is go to Storybird.” Liberian Geek
“It’s an awesome experience, totally age-appropriate to older preschoolers and up. It’s very fun, satisfying, and builds language skills like crazy!” Melissa/Arapahoe Library
More quotes and tweets after the jump:
Michael J. McAghon (rather brilliantly) abstracts and visualizes the narrative energy of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. Via Mr. Fairley. More Wild Thing posts.
Clapping our hands (and saying “yeah!”) for The Yellow Bird Project’s Indie Rock Coloring Book with illos by Andy Miller. Enjoy art, color outside the lines, and support your favorite indie rockers.
ust when it seems that digital typography has settled into a sort of humdrum routine rooted in technical limitations, along comes the ‘daily drop cap‘ by Jessica Hische. You can embed them in your blog (witness the J at left) and use them for all sorts of non-commercial uses. Although I was initially drawn into her work by the drop caps (no small feat to pull those off successfully) I realized that she’s something of a ‘triple-threat’ in that she’s a designer, typographer and illustrator – all of which she combines extremely well. She’s designed some absolutely lovely book interiors and in addition, her illustration work is absolutely stunning.
