We’re almost ready to generate the final PDFs for our custom-designed version of “Ebook Enlightenment” at #rdcHQ – we still have a few finishing touches to put on our XHTML files, such as fine-tuning page breaks and some typographical nuances – but we are getting very close! A sample page is below:

You can take a peek at our XHTML files (still being tweaked!) and our design source files as well:

Christopher did a wonderful job translating Oceana’s illustration style into a cohesive book design (you can see his original layouts in the WorkSpace area of our site). The goal is to have an attractive design with highly legible text – readable in both print and online versions. We achieved our final result by customizing an EPUB generated by OBJAVI in SIGIL, and then manually exporting the resulting XHTML and CSS files. We will generate our final high-resolution PDF this week using PrinceXML.

Our custom-designed version will be in full color using Oceana’s high-resolution imagery. We have run some test versions of the cover, and we are pleased with the results! We plan to ship at the end of this month – time is running tight to get our cover autographed by all of the people who worked on this project – college is about to begin, and new projects are underway for all of the members of the team.

Stay tuned!

We are still wrapping up a few details on our summer program, but there are new things brewing at #rdcHQ – we are pleased to announce our Fall Extra Credit Project: a collaboration with our friends at PortOrford.TV called “BattleRockTV” (#BRTV).

This project has been incubating over the summer – Jason and Nate have been creating storyboards, lining up stories under the guidance of PortOrford.TV, and working on their technique – and after a few rounds of editing and a stealth launch to a small group of beta-testers, the #BRTV crew launched their pilot episode last week! Christopher is still fine-tuning the logo based on a design by Nate Malamud that he created this summer at #rdcHQ:

More episodes are in the works for the 2010/2011 season – we will keep you posted at #rdcHQ on this exciting new project!

Greetings from #rdcHQ! The crew has been busy working on a couple of fun Extra Credit collaborative art projects after a wonderful art show opening (more on this soon) to bring a fitting close to a wonderful summer of work!

Oceana was invited by James Simmons to present a new cover concept for his first book, “Make Your Own Sugar Activities,” due to her great work on “E-book Enlightenment.” She gave it a unique look of its own, combining it with iconic visuals that are generally associated with the XO and other FLOSS Manual covers

We have also been working on a new design for author Howard Rheingold for his book “How To Paint Your Shoes.” The cover made its debut at the Songlines art show at Point.B Studio last Labor Day Weekend:

We had such a great time making art together this summer, we think we might have one last event when we produce our custom-designed version of “E-book Enlightenment” for our Kickstarter backers at the end of the month … Stay tuned!

We have been doing a lot of work on the best approach to ePub -> PDF conversion at #rdcHQ. Christopher has been looking at Booki, a web site that promises to be the future of collaborative book publishing. It provides powerful tools that enable anyone to create an eBook in a wiki environment.

Booki is developed by many of the same folks behind FLOSS Manuals, so a lot of the features are familiar, but far more robust. One of the most powerful features of Booki is OBJAVI, a PDF publisher, that will import any work on the Booki/FLOSS Manuals network and generate a PDF for print and online viewing. OBJAVI enables you to select from a range of standard publishing formats, set your margins, and publish the book according to your very own custom-designed Cascading Style Sheet (CSS).

Here is a screenshot on the Macintosh:

And another on Windows Vista, showing the custom CSS pane:

Our goal is to produce our final book in this paradigm. There are a lot of design issues to consider, and we have been looking at other tools that may give us greater control over certain design elements (primarily PrinceXML). We know that beautiful books can be published with Booki (we have seen one in particular) – but the technical nature of our material poses certain challenges. We are working on our final production timeline with author James Simmons, and we have decided to give ourselves until the end of September to make our collaborative book all that it can be!