Atavist Books
Atavist Books was founded by IAC’s Barry Diller, producer Scott Rudin, publisher Frances Coady, and digital magazine The Atavist. It only lasted a few short years, but was possibly the most ambitious digital book publisher during its lifespan.
My role as Digital Design and Production Manager was to oversee digital production for our titles. I built custom software and workflows to convert each title from Word or InDesign files into JSON to be imported into Creativist (later renamed Atavist). Every book was published on the Creatavist platform for the optimum experience, but was also available as EPUB and Kindle titles for gracefully degraded reading.
While Chip Kidd was the creative director for most Atavist Books projects, I led the interactive experiences on many of the titles and their marketing projects.
Sleep Donation Trailer
Sleep Donation was the inaugural Atavist Books title. Written by MacArthur Grant winner Karen Russell, the novella wasn’t interactive but promotional materials for the story explored the book’s world building in this animated trailer. Chip Kidd and I art directed the illustrations by Kevin Tong, I animated it and did the sound editing.
Announcing Atavist Books
Atavist Books’ announcement page was an opportunity to announce our first round of titles as well as to set the stage for the look and feel of our brand. I designed the page and used some subtle SVG animations to show how we would blend technology and storytelling without overwhelming readers with digital tricks. View the archived version of this project.
Twice Upon a Time
Hari Kunzru’s Twice Upon a Time was my favorite Atavist Books title. Hari had written a short piece weaving the story of his own New York City experience with the biography of street musician Moondog a few years prior to Atavist Books buying it. It was unlike anything I had ever read before. The rhythm of the writing matched the rhythm of Moondog’s music. Our decision to turn the piece into a “swipe story”—a reader swipes words and sounds onto the screen, mimicking the rhythms inherent in both—was an easy one.
Hari provided us with photography and binaural audio from across the city. I converted the photos into collages that opened each section. The audio recordings were edited and interwoven with the music of Moondog. I produced some lightweight tools within the Atavist CMS for our editorial staff to quickly experiment with audio transitions and sequencing.
To this day Twice Upon a Time is the closest I’ve come to my ideal digital storytelling experience.
Many editors, designers, and developers contributed to these projects. Editor-in-chief Frances Coady, managing editor Kianoosh Hashemzadeh, Operations VP Christian Smythe, Atavist CTO Jeff Rabb, and designer/developer Casey Gollan. And of course the wonderful writers and editors of each title who contributed more than I did in every instance.