Website Instagram LinkedIn

Project Overview

What kind of person would you like to read about? Someone Honest? Optimistic? Imaginative? And what action would you like to take? Perhaps you would like to change your life? Get your hands dirty? Start a movement? You tell the Dumbo Feather iPad app what you want, and based on your selections, the app delivers you a curated page of suggested conversations/profiles from the Dumbo Feather magazine archive. Clever hey?

Organisation

Dumbo Feather

Team

Digital editor: Brendan McKnight
Art director: David Michael
Developed by: RD2, Inc

Project Brief

The brief was an open one and one that the Dumbo Team spent many months exploring, workshopping and brainstorming. We wanted to create an app, but we didn't just want it to simply be a digital/pdf version of the magazine. We wanted to create something dynamic, interactive, engaging, and special. We wanted an app that puts the 100's of extraordinary people we have interviewed over the past 8 years in the spotlight.

Project Need

Perhaps the most exciting thing about the app is that it is completely free.

Free? Yes, free! In keeping with our “pass it on” tradition we made a pretty massive decision to give all of our content away for free on the iPad app. “Why?” you ask. “They’re crazy!” you say. Well, we reckon if our aim is to make the world a better place, then the more people who read our stories and are inspired to live with passion and purpose, the better. It’s about impact.

User Experience

The launch version of the app includes all conversations from issues 20 to 35 of the magazine as well as video and extended image galleries. Over the next six months the remaining back issues of the magazine will be released through the app (all for free), including the very first issue, published in 2004.

A unique feature of the app is its bespoke ‘Tickle My Fancy’ selector, where users can select a personality trait (I want to read about someone who is... humble / fearless / innovative etc.) and a desired action (I want to... dream big / change my life / start a movement etc.). Based on specific algorithms embedded into each conversation, the user is then presented with a curated page of suggested articles.

Users can also search and sort conversations by Topic, Recent, Popular, and browse through Issues via the Cover Flow. The ‘My Feathers’ function allows users to bookmark their favourite conversations for later reading, or to share with friends through Facebook, Twitter and email.

Project Marketing

We created a marketing strategy that would excite and engage both people that were already fans of Dumbo Feather and those that were yet to discover the magazine. The app has received thousands of downloads across the globe and both national and international praise (check us out on the Design Files here: http://bit.ly/14BzRNO) and has been featured in the New & Noteworthy section of the App Store in over 10 countries.

The iPad app is made possible thanks to the generous support of almost 300 individuals and businesses that pledged to our Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign. We love these guys so much.

The app is proudly sponsored by the Commonwealth Bank—whose support means that the app is free for everyone to download and access.