Edugameshub interviewed Pablo Curti, Creative Director at NIÑO Studio and creator of a beautiful new interactive story app (called Love, the App) based on a classic illustrated book.
Hi Pablo. You are the creator of Love, the App. Can you give us a little background on you and your studio, which is based in Buenos Aires?
I’m a journalist. I’ve studied communication, worked for a while in the traditional media industry as a writer and then jumped into the entrepreneurship world.
Pablo Curti, Developer of Love, The App
Since 1999 I’ve been running my own companies. During that time I was living in Chile where I first founded Bellavista Net Group, a company focused on building virtual community platforms from the public sector. Five years later I moved to Buenos Aires and founded Happy Together, a branded content agency. So I can say that I’ve spent almost 15 years working in the content marketing industry. In 2012 we decided to create NIÑO, a Digital Storytelling division of Happy Together. We wanted to have a space to explore the fiction storytelling and narrative fields. As I’m kind of a children’s book freak, we created NIÑO. A studio in which we combine our passion for books and storytelling in a digital environment. The result is NIÑO, a digital publisher.
We realized that there is a big gap in the kids digital publishing industry. A lot of people are developing apps that are anonymous. A lot of print publishers are scared of the investments and the poor results that they are getting with interactive storybooks. And there is a very concentrated distribution model. You can’t be optimistic when you see that scenario. Still we want to swim in this hole to see if there is some light at the end.
Can you tell us about ‘Love, The App’ and the fascinating story behind it? Why did you decide to take on this project?
My wife introduced me to the book LOVE 5 years ago and I fell in love with it. It is a book that was created 60 years ago, so original, so unique. Full of shapes and layers. With those pages of vibrant colors and such a powerful and universal story, I was captivated by the book.
“Love”, the original illustrated book which inspired Love, the App
When the idea of NIÑO came up, I wanted LOVE to be our first interactive storybook. Not only because I was hypnotized with the book. I also had this idea that LOVE was created with a kind of touchy and animated conception. There were many things related to the reading experience that refer to a digital narrative.
So I jumped from inbox to inbox during a couple of months until I reached Gian Berto Vanni, the original author of the book. At the end of 2012 we met in New York, where Vanni lives. That afternoon he told me why and how he created Love in 3 days. His theory of the color in time and the idea of static animation that he developed using this paper cutting technique. Imagine that it was such a complex book to print that it took 10 years until a French publisher (Pierre Tisne) had the courage to publish Love for the first time.
This afternoon, at Vanni’s studio we set the base of the project. And in march 2013 we started working on the app. I still remember our first working meeting. I was as excited as scared with the responsibility that I had in my hands.
The app has won some awards recently (congratulations!) – can you tell us how it is being received around the world?
The BolognaRagazzi Digital Award is an exciting prize for many reasons. Mostly because the jury focused on the narrative experience. That is a point in which we are a almost obsessed. We love stories but we also love the “telling”. It doesn’t matter if you create movies, books or games, the narrative aspect is crucial.
Pablo Curti talking about Love, The App at Bologna
Then we have the main recognition from the most important children’s book fair in the world and this is not minor. I’ve realized that our App excelled among 300 projects from almost 50 countries and that is a compliment but also a confirmation for our first project. We took a kind of explorational way through the creative process that finished in an app that is really different from the rest of the apps, as the juror says. So, that confirmation encourage us to work with such a freedom. Also, the visibility of the prize allowed us to reach many people who gave as feedback on the app. We received a lot of emails (and reviews) from different people and ages who were touched by the app. And this is something transcendent for us. Because one of the reasons why we created NIÑO is because we believe that a story can positively transform a person in some kind of therapeutic way.
So, it’s a nice recognition in many ways.
What are some of the challenges involved in turning a book like this into an app, and how have you met them?
There were many aspects to consider. Love is a book in which the paper is not only a support but a kind of esthetic element. There was also the fact that it has been 60 years from the creation of the book. And for us this was a kind of temporal signature that had to be present. And finally, that theory of the color in time and the concept of the static animation that Vanni developed in the book as a part of his Master’s degree.
So we wanted to bring this analogic mood into the digital. We wanted the user to experiment the sense of materiality of the book and the paper in a new environment.
We made some practical decisions – respect the original materiality by honoring the paper, the shapes and textures of the original LOVE. And we decided to build the app working with the pages of the original book instead of using the pages of the offset version that had lost many of the principles that Vanni had defined; for example some colors, shapes and also some peepholes that were very difficult to get in a print process. We also respected the sign of the times in the original handmade book in order to transport the reader to the very origin of the creation – to a lost time. And we recreated the paper cut technique that was part of the original process using a simple stop motion animation.
Finally we include the only element that wasn’t present in the original book: music. We worked very hard building an original soundtrack and a sound design that really empowers the narration.
It took almost three months before we started the production process. We spent a lot of time talking and playing with the pages and colors of Love. This was an open working process but I’m pretty sure that we got to the heart of the app during this time.
What other work has your studio done that we should know about? What are your future projects? How can we find out about your other work?
Love, The App is our first official project. Now we are working in two more apps. One of them will be released very soon. Unfortunately, that is all I can say for now.
We’ve also just released a Love Android version. Download from Google Play. Download from iTunes.
I’m also interested in the games/app design scene in Argentina and other parts of South America. Is this a growing scene, and are there any other studios or apps we should be aware of in Europe?
As it’s happening in most of the countries gaming is also leading the mobile industry in Argentina. I confess that is not a field in which I have been immersed. But you can take a look at the work of Daniel Benmergui, an indie developer focus in experimental narrative games. Also Agustín Cordes who is the author of Scratches, a kind of graphical adventure. Now he’s working in Asylum and you can take a look at his work here.
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