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.

How did you make Poe and Lulu relatable?

NS: I definitely want readers to see chimps, in terms of realizing that these are animals that are being forced to act as if they’re humans, and that’s not okay. I want them to recognize that these are not just Curious George and little cartoons that could be anybody. Though, while I want them to see the animal, I also very much hope that they see themselves and their family members in some of these characters.

Children will see themselves in Lulu, and possibly see their grandparents in Poe, so it’s very important that there be some humanity in them.  We want kids to associate with these characters and sympathize with them, and see them as somebody who should not be mistreated, any more than they would want their loved ones to be mistreated.

From both a story and an illustration perspective, Poe is in many ways the more interesting character, isn’t he?

NS: Lulu is obviously our protagonist. And naturally she was going to be the friendly one and the smiley one and the more relatable one.  But, fundamentally the story is about Poe and his experiences. We see him from his youth when he’s going through all these really troubling times, we see him when he’s older and he’s finally made it into this wonderful zoo haven where he’s finally able to have a family and be happy.  So we see in him a wide range of emotions.  I would say that he actually epitomizes what it would mean to be human, much more than Lulu does without necessarily looking human or acting human in any other way. He was just a lot more of a colorful character, both in terms of the way that I had to draw him and the way he looked and the way he acted and the things that he said and felt.  He just had this great variety to him that I thought was a nice epitome of a very interesting character.

Can you talk about the differences in the illustration style between the flashback and the zoo scenes?

NS: I would say the biggest difference between the zoo and the flashback scenes is the approach. In the beginning we talked a lot about making them hearken back to the way that older-style drawings were done. So while we didn’t go all the way back to approaching it with such intensity, I would say I still attempted to do that. For instance, even though the zoo scenes were rendered very lushly in very saturated colors, there’s almost no trace of line, everything seems to be really done over. I would say the flashback scenes I approached instead with, I would say, a little bit more simplicity, I left the drawing intact, I colored very, I would say, modestly. I relied on line for a lot more than actual color to give a sense that it was done with a little bit more naiveté almost to give it a sense both of being in the past but also perhaps of being from an older time.

How did you work with the rest of the team?

I believe everyone had each other’s work in the back of their heads and knew that ultimately the piece you contribute isn’t the final piece. For me as the illustrator, the illustration I would be making was not the final product — a programmer needs to do programming with it, an interface designer needs to design an interface around it, story text was going to be placed on it.

My job, aside from creating what I hoped would be an appealing illustration, was to contribute functionally to these moving parts that the end product would be made up of. I think we all worked with that very collaborative mindset from start to finish.

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Stay tuned for the free release of Chimps Should Be Chimps in the App Store — and if you’d like to be the first to know about Chimp updates, sign up for our newsletter.

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.

There’s a terrific metaphor from the founders of Sesame Street about interaction. Their show was a strong response to naysayers who believed education should never be mixed with entertainment, that an important message was good enough. Trouble was, much like broccoli, kids tended to avoid this type of education like the plague. The show’s co-founders called their philosophy “raspberry yogurt” – work that’s both tangy and nutritious. Sesame Street’s success attests to the power of this enhanced educational approach.

A little spice enhances a message, making it more appealing and more potent. So many important ideas fail to capture the imagination thanks to a traditional one-way mentality. We’ve found that the iPad is a tremendous platform for taking serious messages to a new level of engagement.

Stay tuned for the free release of Chimps Should Be Chimps in the App Store — and if you’d like to be the first to know about Chimp updates, sign up for our newsletter.

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.

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.

We’ve just launched the site and so far we’ve been very pleased with the results of our little social media experiment. We’ve used tweeSP to find gifts ideas for friends and family, or just had fun seeing what presents are recommended for celebrity tweeters.

Many people question the value of Twitter, but here’s one example of how tweets can be used in an incredibly interesting and useful way. So take tweeSP for a spin and see if you get some interesting gift ideas for the last few people on your holiday shopping list.

PS – for those of you scratching your head over our name for this cool new toy, it’s a play on Twitter and ESP. Now aren’t we punny!

]]> http://www.manningproductions.com/blog/2010/12/big-things-come-in-little-tweets-manning%e2%80%99s-twitter-gift-idea-app-launches/feed/ 0 http://www.manningproductions.com/blog/2010/11/interactive-chart-tracks-countrys-mood-about-financial-security/ http://www.manningproductions.com/blog/2010/11/interactive-chart-tracks-countrys-mood-about-financial-security/#comments Wed, 17 Nov 2010 15:35:08 +0000 Amy http://www.manningproductions.com/blog/?p=2973 Launched in 2007, the COUNTRY Financial Security Index® is a bi-monthly measure of Americans’ sentiments towards their overall financial security. Survey results are released to the media and general public quarterly via the COUNTRY Financial Security Index microsite.

The focal point of the site is a Flash-based line chart that visualizes survey results nationally and in five select markets. Unfortunately, there was no way to compare one market to another on just one chart. Additionally, limits with the current graphic made month-to-month results appear incremental.

Manning was enlisted to solve these problems. We streamlined the design of the site to make it easier to read the data. The line chart was redeveloped to be more interactive and to make the X and Y axis scalable. Users can now see and share direct market-to-market comparisons. We also made it easier to embed the chart on blogs and other sites.

Accompanying the interactive charts are releases providing greater detail about the survey results. Manning adjusted the CSS on these release pages to accommodate the ability to embed video within them.

The new CFSI microsite is an example of how a few small changes to an existing site can provide a huge impact in terms of improving the user experience and increasing the likelihood that people will continue to subscribe to it.

Every player and coach on the winning team gets 24 hours with sports most celebrated trophy. They take it back to their home town, drink champagne from it, christen babies in, and use it as a dog food bowl. It’s been around the world from Afghanistan to Graceland to mountain tops in Canada.

The Sun-Times took the time to create a map of everywhere the Cup has been with the Blackhawks — but instead of making an interactive tool that could call up pictures and video of the Cup’s travels — theirs is a 1960s era static poster that misses a huge opportunity to tell a compelling visual story.  The Sun-Times should stick to newspapers because they certainly don’t get it.

And social media has become a critical component of the international aid effort. The American Red Cross has set up a cell phone donation campaign, where individuals can text Haiti to 90999 to donate $10, which will then be included in their next cell phone bill

As a side note, the LA Times is featuring an interactive Flash earthquake feature that provides interesting background on the location of fault lines globally, the types of faults and the different types of earthquake waves