Unlike a lot of project manager tools, these resources won’t help you manage your workload, multi-task, or prioritize your workflow. Instead, they fulfill our number one task: effective communication.
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Typography for Lawyers: Essential Tools for Polished & Persuasive Documents
by Matthew Butterick

I may not be a designer, but I represent a design company. Each document that leaves my office needs to look deliberate, thoughtful, and legible. And no matter what your resume claims, you’re not proficient in Word until you can nicely format your work.

Enter Matthew Butterick, an attorney/digital type designer. His book, Typography for Lawyers, codified my gut reactions to basic design mistakes and armed me with the tools to fix them. Don’t let the title deceive you. This book applies to anybody who writes on a regular basis. Butterick’s work mixes philosophy with practical how-tos; he focuses on the functional, not the needlessly fancy. For example, rules come with explanations:

I know that many peo­ple were taught to put two spaces between sen­tences. I was too. But these days, using two spaces is an obso­lete habit. The prac­tice was passed down from the typewriter era. Type­writer fonts had unusual pro­por­tions. Using two spaces helped set off sentences a bit bet­ter. We don’t use type­writ­ers any­more. So it’s not stan­dard. It’s not part of typo­graphic prac­tice. Once in a while, you can use two spaces after sen­tences. When? If you’re forced to use a typewriter-style font. These are also known as monospaced fonts.

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We’d like you to meet our new Producer/Video Editor, Erik Duda.

Erik worked as a multimedia specialist at the University of Connecticut where he produced, shot and edited video and multimedia projects for University Communications. His work included creating recruitment programs, marketing and news pieces.

He has extensive experience with non-linear editing, 2D and 3D graphic creation, shooting with a variety of HD camera formats, and video compression. And he sometimes even stars in his own work.

At Manning he’ll be responsible for video projects and integrating video into our digital interactive work. In his spare time Erik has a passion for stand-up comedy, guitar and playing ice hockey. Although he’s originally from Connecticut, he is not a Boston Bruins fan (so getting him to support the Blackhawks won’t be hard.)

As the launch date for Chimps Should Be Chimps approaches, we’re taking a look back at our development process. In this interview, our art director explains how Manning’s company philosophy informed decisions behind the app’s design.

What made the iPad a good fit for Project ChimpCARE?

Patrick Mouser: The iPad and other emerging platforms are really changing the way in which companies, organizations, etc can reach their audience. Traditional media such as print, TV and even the (capital I) Internet can’t rival the level of engagement possible with the iPad. The device is highly mobile – people use it everywhere, it’s intuitive – used by toddlers and grandparents alike, it’s tactile – you literally hold and touch it to interact. Additionally, most users think of their iPad as technology that enriches their experience: they download apps to make things easier, do things faster, to entertain, to learn, to connect. They trust it and welcome it into their lives. And so the relationship they have with the device creates an environment that is fundamentally more conducive to engaging people than the bully pulpit provided by traditional media. And so it’s interesting to explore the idea of how to communicate with users within this entirely new dynamic.
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As the launch date for Chimps Should Be Chimps approaches, we’re taking a look back at our development process. For our first installment, we talked to the story’s illustrator about research, favorite characters, and collaboration.

Can you tell us how you developed the artistic style for the character illustrations?

Natalie Sklobovskaya:   For Lulu and Poe, there were many ways I could have drawn them. They could have been a drawing for National Geographic or it could have been a drawing for some nature textbook, but we were dealing with a digital children’s book. So for that there needs to be a lot more research done both on how children’s book chimps are drawn, and how to draw a chimp, because I have never drawn chimpanzees before in such an intense fashion.

For the character design portion, I took trips to the zoo to learn how to draw chimps. I spent hours sketching and learning how they live, where they hang out and how they move.  I also tried to figure out how to depict them with regards to where on the gradient of animal to human they were going to lie. We wanted the reader to relate to the chimps. So within that it was a lot of push and pull, bringing in little characteristics of humans – you know, whites of the eyes, and maybe less furry or a little bit furrier… finding a good balance until it looks like something that’s friendly and real at the same time.
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Combining creative people with the right clients and challenges results in some pretty unique work – like our soon-to-launch iPad app Chimps Should Be Chimps. Working with Project ChimpCARE taught us about the problems surrounding chimpanzees in entertainment. We learned another big lesson from the app itself: that we can find effective ways to use the iPad and other digital technologies to convey important information in an engaging way.
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We humans are social creatures that thrive on face to face interaction and communication.   Tom Erickson, interaction designer and researcher in the Social Computing Group at IBM’s Watson Labs defines social computing as providing an online place, application or service that have some of that “life” to them. 
His new report provides a though-provoking analysis of what is “social computing,” how does it differ from “social media,” and what is its impact on the way we work, live and play.

Erickson’s report and interview discussions provide insight for digital designers and developers like Manning, but also important ideas for those in online marketing and communications.  He likens digital designers to architects and urban planners who are creating public spaces to encourage people to interact, communicate, and live together.  He suggests that we look at online spaces in terms of the interaction they support and promote.

It’s a compelling analysis well worth the investment of time.

Back in the days of our CEES iPrep app, Apple made it kind of a pain to distribute works outside of the App Store. Businesses that wanted to create internal tools had use ad-hoc builds — a process that’s pretty difficult for even tech-savvy clients.

Someone at Apple woke up and realized that internal business apps needed their own tools. Enter the Apple Developer Enterprise Program.
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There’s a pervasive “Mommy and me” vision of children’s technology – the idea that every time a child uses a device, someone lovingly guides them through each tap or click.

Researchers know this ideal approach is pretty rare. Here’s a more realistic scenario: The parent downloads an app and swipes through. If it looks kosher, they’ll “pass back” the smartphone or tablet to their child and return to their grown-up tasks. If you can’t depend on Mom and Dad’s web-savvy guidance, how do you make an app kid-friendly?

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Meet our newest Project Manager!

We’d like to formally introduce our newest interactive project manager, Laura Nash. Laura joined us mid-September after completing a cross-country move from Seattle, Washington. She’s got years of experience producing digital media from concept development through post-launch strategy. Her production background includes work for Random House, Disney Online, Penguin Books, and Discovery Networks. In her spare time, Laura loves directing and stage managing theater.

As Interactive Project Manager at Manning, Laura will provide leadership on individual projects as well as overall creative vision and direction. She is especially well versed in app development and promotion. Oh, and if you aren’t sold on her yet — Celine Dion once sang her Happy Birthday. You’ve got to admit that’s pretty cool.

At Manning, we believe that good work comes from a very simple formula: hire talent, plan well, work hard.

Good work comes from good planning. Good planning comes from the right questions. Take our current bundle of fun for Project ChimpCARE.

First question: “What do they want?”

The Lincoln Park Zoo wanted to make a piece promoting Project ChimpCARE .

Next question: “No, what do they really want?”

ChimpCARE wanted a piece that illustrated how chimps were mistreated in entertainment, showed why people shouldn’t support chimps in entertainment, and showed how zoos are integral to rehabilitating those chimpanzees.

So we pitched an iPad children’s book.  It was a different way to get to the target audience and achieve all the goals of the project. Even though it wasn’t what they had originally envisioned for this project, the zoo embraced the idea and let us run with it.

That freedom allowed us to throw ourselves into crafting something that both reflected the objectives of ChimpCARE and let us demonstrate what we could really do as a company.

We started pitching story outlines back and forth. Versions and versions later, we had our outline.

We started writing. Seventeen drafts later, we had our story.

We started storyboarding. A hundred chalkboard drawings and digital sketches later, the book was starting to take shape.

We had a solid month of illustrations (24 illustrations in 25 days. Keep an eye out for Natalie’s post about exactly how much work that is.)

Then, after all of that, we can get to work on the iPad. All of the interactive design and development that goes into turning a story into an app is, according to our estimates, about a million hours more.

That’s a lot of work.

Every single step of the process was deliberately planned, everything was approved by the zoo as we went so there were no surprises, and every person on the project knew exactly what was happening and who to ask if they had any questions. Most importantly, we kept the project goals in mind while we worked through each part of the process.

Last question: “Was all that work worth it?”

Absolutely.