New Yorker cover brings Manhattan to life in augmented reality
The New Yorker's latest cover is designed to literally leap off the page.
The esteemed 91-year-old magazine is taking a step towards the future with its first-ever augmented reality cover this week, allowing readers to hover their smartphone or tablet over it and watch the New York city skyline come to life in a three-dimensional animation.
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Inside, two double-page spread ads for Qualcomm are given the same AR treatment, and a second AR-enabled cover graces the back of the issue.
Designed by artist Christopher Niemann, the animation shows a woman rushing onto a New York subway car, which then bursts out of its track to soar around a rotating 3D rendering of the Manhattan cityscape.
"If you create a world on paper, you create a window," Niemann said in the magazine's cover story on the project. "Usually, you just break the surface with your mind, but you always have the feeling of: What if you could step into that world or if something could come out of it?”
In order to see the AR portion, you'll need to download the app Uncovr, which the magazine designed specially for the project. Watch the video below to see how it all works.
New Yorker publisher Lisa Hughes said the idea for the cover came out of a brainstorming session with the editorial staff for a creative way to mark the magazine's annual special issue on innovation.
Qualcomm signed on as an advertiser for that issue shortly afterwards, and the company helped connect business-side staff with a startup that specialized in the technology.
The New Yorker has been bolstering its digital presence in recent months with undertakings like its new streaming series on Amazon and a podcast and radio show on NPR's WNYC.
But the Conde Nast-owned brand's weekly print offering of course remains its flagship product.
"There's certainly growth happening in digital but print is still a very strong, strong part of our [profit]," Hughes told Mashable.
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Patrick Kulp is a Business Reporter at Mashable. Patrick covers digital advertising, online retail and the future of work. A graduate of UC Santa Barbara with a degree in political science and economics, he previously worked at the Pacific Coast Business Times.
