Media

Tabletising is no longer media science fiction. Even if Apple’s iPad is not the tablet that will descend from on high to be the game changer for the media industry, I am fascinated by how it is stirring the passions of editors, designers and publishers worldwide. Without fail, sometime between breakfast and lunch somebody will ask me about the iPad and how his/her publication could be the first to carry ink and paper into pixels and screen.

Ink, paper, pixels, screen – a happy mojito mix if you ask me – and good story- telling will find a new, vibrant, animated ally.

Indeed, I think we will be reading many of our favourite magazines, newspapers and books on the iPad, or some other tablet that will inevitably appear to rival Apple. Already Adobe has announced Adobe AIR, a standalone program that runs Flash applications on Macs and PCs. Furthermore, my team and I are drawing up the first sketches as clients in three continents stare into that small 10-inch screen and see their brand taking flight in a new vessel. iPad & Co may sing the happy “show me the money” tune for the media industry.

When it comes to business cards, Monocle staff like to pack a decent wedge of 350gsm Colorplan Bright White into their trouser pockets. Stiffer still is this offering from Music, a Manchester-based design agency with an inclination toward the analogue. Besides the vinyl calling card (cut from “Peg” by Steely Dan) is the ultimate ad: Stuff We Really Like is the agency’s 785-page hardback inventory of the amusing, the unusual and the often overlooked – from Eric Cantona to Edward Hopper via boarding a moving Routemaster bus. Yes! A creative agency that wants to show that it’s a creative agency.