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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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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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.

Before illustrators were professional artists working on deadline and caffeine, they were once painstakingly trying to figure out how to make a nose look right, how to make the brush leave the marks they wanted, how to make fur look like fur without drawing every single hair. Though with time and effort their skills will render the nose, the fur, and the paintbrush half the challenges they once were, the question of “how do I draw?” will follow illustrators into their careers, even after many technical aspects of drawing are hardly a problem.

While every illustration presents a unique creative challenge, sometimes a project is also sufficiently outside the illustrator’s usual “alley.” And that’s when things get interesting — an unfamiliar subject means the illustrator cannot rely on many of the well-rehearsed tricks in their bag.

…which is actually primally terrifying. The “bag of tricks” is a parachute in a world in which there is often no time to risk or mess up. But it’s okay — there is nothing illustrators love more than terror, stress, and sleep-deprivation, else we wouldn’t be in the field! Onward!

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We recently completed our first ever app for the hottest gadget of the year: the Apple iPad. We’ve been wanting to build something for iPhone/iPod/iPad for a while now, but finally got our chance.  And while we’re proud of our first app, the process was not without its challenges. Here are five quick lessons that we learned by entering the world of iPad:

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A couple exciting things happened yesterday. Nearly all my attention was focused on the launch of the new First Vehicle Services website. Meanwhile the rest of the world was focused on this. Steve Jobs said that it is “our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary product at an unbelievable price.” Adam at Gizmod said it sucks.  My wife said “maybe we could get an iPad instead of the netbooks we have been looking at,” (no link, she said it in real life.)  Well, I still haven’t gotten a chance to read or watch anything about the device, so I will leave the opinion to others. However, I do know a couple things.

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