The last year within the Digital Publishing Toolkit research project, Hogeschool van Amsterdam and Hogeschool Rotterdam together with various designers and developers, collaboratively worked on the EPUB From Print to Ebooks: a Hybrid Publishing Toolkit for the Arts.
This Toolkit is meant for everyone working in art and design publishing. No specific expertise of digital technology, or indeed traditional publishing technology, is required. The Toolkit provides hands-on practical advice and tools, focusing on working solutions for low-budget, small-edition publishing.
It includes answers on questions like; Is electronic book technology really the way forward for these types of publications? Or does the answer lie in some hybrid form of publication, in which both print and electronic editions of the same basic content can be published in a parallel or complementary fashion? And perhaps more importantly, what are the changes in workflow and design mentality that will need to be implemented in order to allow for such hybrid publications?
Everything in the Hybrid Publishing Toolkit is based on real-world projects with art and design publishers. Editorial scenarios include art and design catalogues and periodicals, research publications, and artists’/designer’s books.