If you really care about printed media and want to see it succeed, then you’d probably acknowledge it must change in some way. The husband and wife team of Armin Vit and Bryony Gomez-Palacio seem to understand this better than most; they remain passionately devoted to paper goods but also embrace the possibilities of digital technology. (Full disclosure: they’re friends of mine.)
Their latest project, “The Adventures of You and I,” is a great example of this. It’s a beautifully illustrated and imaginatively written children’s book that you can customize for the special child in your life. That doesn’t just mean you can add the child’s name to the cover or even to the title, though both are possible. No, more than that, you can configure the central character of the book, changing his or her hair color, hair style, skin color and clothing color. The child’s name gets seamlessly integrated into the storyline too, making the whole thing uniquely personal.
This is a hint of what a healthy marriage of print and digital can be, not just in its configurability, but in the fact that “The Adventures of You and I” is a thoroughly indie affair, too. No big publishing house was involved in this production, both because no big publishing house was necessary and because no big publishing house could have done this so well. Find out more here.
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