[ . 0 3 ] TIME WARNER BOOKS - iPUBLISH.com

[ b a c k g r o u n d ]

Time Warner Books decided to develop an online writers' community, enabling editors to scout out new talent, as well as market books in the "eBook" format. As a result, iPublish.com became the first joint effort of the newly merged AOL-Time Warner Corporation.

Bluebarn Interactive, a New York company specializing in building online communities, was awarded the project. After procuring designs from several New York agencies that weren't "the right fit", Bluebarn asked Conduit Interactive to submit a design as part of the second round of concept presentations scheduled for the next day. We accepted this "11th-hour" challenge, and won the contract based on the unique design solutions I brought to the table after an all-night design session.
 

[ p r o b l e m ]

Bluebarn's team had already put together an extensive wire framework of the site, which posed a number of design challenges. The site would consist of three seperate sections, named "iRead" - an eBook store, "iWrite" - a writers community, and "iLearn" - an education center. The sites needed consistancy, while maintaining a unique flavor of their own. The client had specified a very high standard for the interface design, and the resulting design and revision process was sometimes laborous.
 

[ a p p r o a c h ]

The client was looking for a gender-neutral site feel, so we began with a muted color pallete of blues, greens and reds. We wanted a site with soft, but defined lines - something that would serve as an effective "environment" without distracting from the content. Consistancy and structure was the name of the game, so we began with one of the main sections, iWrite. Once we had a design that jumped all the hurdles, we proceeded to apply that style to the other sections, addressing their individual needs.
 

[ s o l u t i o n ]

The final design consisted of 4 color schemes using deep shades of purple, red, blue and green, accent colors of color-tinted greys, and poppy versions of the colors for the custom illustrations. The design managed to compliment the content-heavy pages and allow the eye to not feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of text on the page. Having laid out each page in Photoshop for the Bluebarn team to break out and code, we left nothing in the design process to chance, and the resulting consistancy and quality of the interface was proof that it worked.
 

[ r e s u l t ]

The project became a example of collaboration at its best. It could have easily become a failed attempt at the "whisper game", since the client responses were filtered through a committee, then through the Bluebarn Interactive project manager, and then to us. However, with open channels of communication and good leadership from the overall project manager and the Conduit creative director, as well as an unwavering amount of patience and response on my end, we made the project successful.

Unfortunately, iPublish.com shut its virtual doors in December 2001. They decided it was not financially feasable to operate in a market that was not yet ready for the eBook revolution.