Book: A Futurist's Manifesto

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Designing Books in the Digital Age (Craig Mod)

Craig Mod is a writer, (book) designer, publisher, and developer (in whatever order makes sense for that day). Previously, he worked with Flipboard to make real many of the things he thinks and writes about here. You can find Craig on Twitter at: @craigmod.

[Editor's note: This chapter combines two essays that appeared previously, in a slightly different form, at craigmod.com.]

I. Books in the Age of the iPad

1. Defined by Content

For too long, the act of printing something in and of itself has been placed on too high a pedestal. The true value of an object lies in what it says, not its mere existence. And in the case of a book, that value is intrinsically connected to content.

Let’s divide content into two broad groups:

• Content without well-defined form (Formless Content, Fig. 1)
• Content with well-defined form (Definite Content, Fig. 2)

Formless Content can be divorced from layout, reflowed into different formats, and not lose any intrinsic meaning. Most novels and works of nonfiction are Formless.

When Danielle Steele sits at her computer, she doesn’t think much about how the text will look when printed. She thinks about the story as a waterfall of text, as something that can be poured into any container. (Actually, she probably just thinks awkward and sexy things, but awkward and sexy things without regard for final form.)

Content with form—Definite Content—is almost totally the opposite of Formless Content. Most texts ...