I finally had a chance to download and open the premier digital issue of Martha Stewart Living for iPad. It came out last week.
The cover photo image is spectacular. It’s a photo of a peony that opens up when you tap it. The time lapse flower opening on the cover is made up of 180 stills of the peony opening up over 10 hours.
I’ve seen digital versions of a couple of my favorite design magazines but they didn’t take advantage of of changing technology like this does.
Martha didn’t just slap the magazine up on the iPad platform to do it. It was really well thought through. Her team worked closely with the folks at Adobe to put it together and make use of interactive features.
The panoramic photos and the videos are wonderful. The photos really pop. You can scroll pages in any direction, and the articles have links to video. The ads have direct links to videos and to advertiser websites, which I find very convenient (no more typing in wrong urls from magazine listings).
In the premier issue, you can read a Q&A with Martha where she talks about putting the new digital magazine together and about the interplay between creativity and technology. I enjoyed listening to a sound file of the interview too.
The digital magazine issue has a panoramic tour of Martha’s peony garden.
“There are three million iPad owners. If I can encourage some of them to plant peonies or frost a cake, I’ve done my job,” says Martha.
Here’s a video I found on youtube where Martha talks about the thinking that went into developing the new iPad app.