Mag+ Digital Magazine Concept

Mag+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.

The magazine concept described above touches on quite a few interesting topics. Most centrally, the discussion falls on the understanding, or lackthereof, of how a person interacts and with a magazine construct. When trying to replicate this interaction in a digital manner, Bonnier chose not to simplify 'digify' the magazine-reading process, yet instead to bring out the key distinctions that make a magazine a magazine, while taking advantage of a central digital construct.

One of the continuing failures in many electronic magazine concepts, is the misconception that a new magazine, must be just like the old, but why?! As discussed in the video above, they looked at that which is most important - image integration and text. Magazines central role is of course the focus of the many photos -yet these photos too are supplied with ample text.

Text, as the internet has shown, is easiest to read in a scrolling manner. Sure flipping pages makes it feel like the real thing, yet ultimately, it's nothing more than an unneeded nuance. If instead, one was to look at how the text and images interact, that is we typically look at the photos first, find that which is interesting, then read heading information, and if we are intersting we then dive into the suplemental text - we could then find a much more efficient design for a digital magazine concept.

The concept above brings up these points and finds solutions that not only seem very efficient, but also intuitive.

As technology comes to terms with this realization, I question if e-book readers themselves will be forced to make a transition as well. Sure e-books are supposed to be just like book, but as of this writing - the refresh rate upon pressing the next-page button is terribly slow. Granted scrolling as of now is not yet readily possible.

Regardless, the folks over at Bonnier seem to be looking at technology from the right viewpoint. As the digital age continues to take over all of our old media platforms, we must take advantage of an opportunity to improve upon these platforms - not just move them to LCD screens.