So this will be quite a week for announcing cool new projects!

We’re delighted to have worked with Richard Dawkins on the creation of the iPad of version of his new book, “The Magic of Reality,” which features the artwork of Dave McKean. The book is about how incredible the universe is, and why we don’t need to reach for superstition to be awed or to understand our place in it.

The book contains some beautiful myths (illustrated by Dave McKean) which show how our species has explained the ‘hard-to-explain’ over the ages, from Nigerian creation myths to Greek myths about the Milky Way. These are contrasted with The Science in all its glory.

Now: there are plenty of different takes on “how to do the digital book” out there.

These range from the simple portable ePub file—leaving the choice of reader up to the technically proficient user—to the walled garden book simulators such as Kindle or the iBook Store, complete with skeuomorphic page-turning animations. There are also a few generic interactive publishing platforms, and some bespoke software that attempts to take advantage of the affordances of our devices. The most well-known of these are the iPad apps of Alice in Wonderland or Steven Fry’s “The Fry Chronicles.”

We took a fairly fundamental design-led approach to crack our version of the digital book. No surprises: based on the needs of potential users, the specific content of the book and actually understanding what a book is; how it works. That latter was the most interesting part of the project … we have many ideas awaiting their moment. More on that later.

Going back to the fundamental nature of the book led us to blaze our own trail completely, departing from anything we’ve seen. We’ve developed a platform that—we believe—is beautiful and affords more than a tree-based tome, but nevertheless remains true to the nature of printed text.

An author uses words to make things happen in your head. That’s a book. Distract from this and no matter what else you may have, no matter how cool it is, it is less than a book. We knew readability, attractive layout and aesthetic design were fundamentally important before we started.

Now: pages. The corollary of a staying true the nature of the book is taking appropriate advantage of the affordances of the iPad. It’s not made of paper. It doesn’t have pages, but a window on content with a very specific aspect ratio and resolution. Not having pages means we don’t have to chop our content up into a stack of content of equal size. Instead we projected a roll of seamless content behind the screen, which the reader can swipe to reveal new views. We chose to delimit our roll into columns of arbitrary size, each bounded with inertial ratchet point which can frame and reframe the text, retaining legibility and providing great scope for a graphic designer to play with.

Our source material—The Magic of Reality—always wanted to be more than flat text. It wanted to make myths come alive visually via Dave McKean’s drawn, painted and collaged images, memes that (by default) have pushed buttons of mystery and attraction in the human mind since the dawn of language. The book also wanted to make the magic of science incandesce in the reader’s mind through exploration and exciting our natural curiosity. This called for two very different treatments (which I’ll mention below).

For the myths we wanted to create a simple graphical style that provided a style analogous to paper pop-up books. These provide agency to the reader the same as the page-based interface of a book: there’s an analogue relationship between the turn of the page and the state of whatever is popping-up. It’s satisfying and it’s physical. We wanted the same satisfying sense of a new “page” being completed by the agency of the reader, and we fly in images on rails; images of arbitrary shape which make a completed and harmonious picture on a fully revealed view. Images can then gently animate, or animate then loop, stoking the imagination in a gentle way before they lose their focus and the reader starts to read. No hunt-and-peck for interactive gimmicks. We’ve also implemented layers, which move at different speeds and provide a pleasing sense of depth as they come into view.

The science is science. Proper science, simply and accurately illustrated either by static image or by one of a few truly interactive models; breed frogs with long legs, fire cannonballs into orbit, split light up into its constituent colours.

The difference in approach with the myths is absolute and vital to the way our book functions; the myths are stories and no more. Our job is to tell them as well as we can. The science is true, and to understand it better the reader may play with it, with his or her own hands. Our job is to make something understood; the magic of reality should do its own job, start the reader on a journey of imagination more exciting or wonderful as the myths.

A final thanks to Sophie and Dan from Random House, for being fantastic partners on the project, and obviously to Richard Dawkins for his crucial collaborative input into the project.