At the end of his talk on “Dynamic Web Typography” at Smashing Conference in San Francisco a couple of months ago, Jason Pamental added something unexpected: a demonstration of a paginated digital book as website. This is what Jason and I have been working on for the past year or so (with Jason doing all the heavy lifting and me doing the airy theorizing); and which Jason has now got into demonstrable form. One attendee came up to him after his talk and described what Jason had done as a Steve Jobs moment: the “one more thing” that upends everybody’s assumptions and redefines the terms of an entire endeavor.

The relevant bit begins at around 38:00 in this video of Jason’s talk. SmashingConf is aimed at web developers, so it’s heavy on live code; but it’s easy for non-coders to see the result. Combine this responsive, page-based approach with variable fonts, and you’ve got the future of digital books.

June 26, 2019