I remember back about 15 years ago, seeing a holographic adhesive foil sticker for the first time, on the cover of a basketball magazine. You can only imagine the glee I experienced when I tilted the mag, and Michael Jordan lept from the ground to the hoop, a 2 frame ‘animation’ that had my mind boggling.

Amazing technology….amazingly dated that is.

Now comes the 2008 version. Esquire magazine has taken on the technology supplied by E Ink (purveyors of low power ‘electronic paper displays’), to create the world’s first animated magazine cover (or second, depends if you count my slam dunking Michael Jordan magazine!)

Though the whole cover is not animated in this instance, surely this type of technology is paving the way for the future. If a magazine priced at $5.99 can afford this technology, just imagine the potential this low cost, eye-catching communications medium has as a gimmicky and disposable marketing tool as the technology becomes more widely available and is developed further.

The only catch currently is battery life.  In the Esquire magazine instance, panel is powered by a battery with a limited lifespan.  Depending on the temperature (the life of a battery depletes faster in warm weather, than in a cool environment),  this panel would last somewhere in the vicinity of 3 months.

As I am currently based in the Middle East (average temps in the mid 30’s), this could actually be a problem.  My proposed solution - is the incorporation of a paper thin solar-panel in this device, and then it will be desert proof!

Sorry Michael Jordan, I think I’ve found a new favourite magazine cover.

Pricing and Implementation

If you’re keen on getting in on the E-Ink action, I have conducted some further research into the manufacturing of ‘animated magazine covers’ similar to the technology recently adopted by Esquire magazine.

The technology is referred to as “Ink-in-Motion” (or IIM).  For a similar design to the Esquire magazine (i.e. similar sized panel) and assuming a print run of over 20,000 units, the following manufacturing costs and timeframes would apply for the hardware itself:

1. The production per panel would be approximately $14-$18, depending on the specific size chosen
2. The manufacturing time would be 2-4 months

The panels run on six coin cell batteries (you would have probably seen these batteries in a household electronic device at some stage, they are the size of a small coin)

In addition to the above timeframes, you would need to create a conceptual design of the animation (this could be created using a full animation tool such as Flash, or through a static ’story-boarding’ technique using a flat image to illustrate each individual frame.

I would also ecommend that the creation of a conceptual design for the IIM animation was not commenced until the rest of the cover was designed, so that the IIM panel could be seamlessly integrated into the overall design and page layout.

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