ISSUU'S TASTY BITS & BYTES
NOVEMBER 2016
VOLUME 1 ISSUE 1
The new issuu
THE #NEWISSUU ISSUE
Editor in Chief Alette Holmberg-Nielsen Writer Joel Barnard Creative Director Nicole Chiala Guest Illustrator Maya Gürtler Lorentzen
The issuuees: Alexander Grosse, Amalie Rosenstand, Anders Hellerup Madsen, Anders Fugmann, Andreas Dahl, Andrei Ungureanu, Cameron Gallacher, Christian Kastbjerg, Denise Twum, Elise Sabbag, Fabio Stabel, Fernando Romero, Francesco Zanitti, Frej Soya, Grace Cheung, Greta Baranauskaité, Jesper Torp Kristensen, Jesper Holm Olsen, Joe Hyrkin, John Sturino, Jonas Nielsen, Joshua Davis, Karen Mørkholt, Kenneth Skovhus, Lasse Bach, Laurits Langberg, Louise Gonzalez Lauridsen, Maciej Pekala, Mads Sejersen, Marie Bjerregaard, Martin Koch, Matt B., Michael England, Michelle Yang, Mie Tandrup, Mikkel Jensen, Musharrif Hussain, Nicolai Gylling, Paul Kim, Peter Assentorp, Rachel Torres, Rob Siwek, Rolf Ussing, Simon Ellefsen, Slavko Krucaj, Slawomir Smiechura, Søren Thomsen and Yan Hong. The issuu Interns: Anisa Tavangar, Ashley Zhang, Jessica Wong, Joseph Kind, Kaija Hsiao and Maya Kandell. The issuu Production Babies: Frode, Issac, Lea, Lucjia and Naja. Special Thanks: Fredrik Linåker, Juan Jose Romano, Jiyu Zhang, Jonas B. Jensen, Mads Hartmann, Raghav Karol, Sorin Dimofte and Søren Vind. This publication was created using Adobe InDesign. The project workflow was managed seamlessly using issuu Collaborate, the easiest way to plan and produce publications in one place.
Carefully Crafted, Freshly Squeezed When I joined issuu as a Senior
we still questioned everything
Product Owner exactly one year
and chose better over faster.
ago, the thing I first noticed was the care and passion with which
With this premier issue of
everything here is crafted. From
ORANGE JUICE we’ll share the
the beautiful content being
story of our remarkable year-
uploaded by publishers to the
long journey. It’s definitely not
animated discussions of technical
your typical tech story about a
architecture, an acute attention
shiny new feature or an amazing
to detail was everywhere I looked.
growth story. It’s much grittier
These were definitely my kind
than that. Our story is about the
of people.
dedication, hard work and sheer guts necessary to rebuild the very
During my first week at issuu, I
core of a massive existing product.
was thrown into a major project
And we figured what better vehicle
— at the time no one knew how
to tell our story than the one
big it was going to be — rewriting
that hundreds of thousands of
the core of issuu from scratch.
issuu publishers use to tell theirs
Initially, we were driven by the
each month. It’s also the perfect
upcoming changes in the browsers
opportunity for us to show
(i.e. the slow death of Flash).
off all the big little details we’ve
However, as we started digging
built into issuu’s incredible new
into it, it turned out to be so much
reading experience.
more than just about technology. We were re-engineering and
Happy reading!
redesigning issuu to be ready for the future. Despite working under
Alette Holmberg-Nielsen
taxing deadlines, I’m proud to say
Editor in Chief
Obvious Always Wins
Easy on the Eyes
Improved navigational elements,
Uploaded files are split into layers
like page arrows moved off the publication, which has increased the number of pages people are reading.
of high-res JPEGs and text layers to enable crisp, clean text that’s easy to read at all zoom levels. Even the 5pt. disclaimer type that your insurance company doesn’t want you to read.
realized this seemingly simple product was a big beast filled with many features added over the years. Getting a complete overview felt almost like an archeological dig. In total, we were faced with 70 or so different features to implement. Even if we could throw together a
So we asked ourselves what is absolutely essential to the issuu reading experience. feature per week (which would be impossible), it would take over a year to get to the first release. Not exactly within our timeframe. So we asked ourselves what is absolutely essential to the issuu reading experience. To
Page Flip Heaven
answer that question, we trawled through all the comments from our publishers and we studied
If you haven’t noticed by now, a
the behavior of our readers. We
completely new page flip animation,
focused our efforts on a simple
which is better than anything else
and intuitive interface for
out there. Slowly lift a corner to see
reading, crystal-clear text and
what we mean.
a beautiful home-brewed page flip animation. And without question, all features needed to work everywhere — on small and
More Juicy Bits Ahead At issuu, we continuously roll out improvements to our products. Even though this new reading experience is a huge change, it’s no different in the sense that we always break larger projects into multiple releases and ship them one at a time. With this project we’ve already rolled out the majority of the biggest changes to the issuu reading experience. Hopefully you’ve already noticed the performance improvements and the experience’s new look and feel. But wait, there’s more! In the coming months we’ll continue to optimize for speed and release other features that will make the reading experience even better on all devices, browsers and screen sizes. This new and improved issuu is the foundation for our future. We’re thrilled you’re along for the ride, and we can’t wait to share what else we have in store.
Meet Peter Assentorp Peter Assentorp has been
Developer at an advertising
Title: Designer
the designer of issuu’s new
agency called Gottlieb & Co.
Office: Copenhagen
reading experience from the
After three years there, I stumbled
Since: July 2014
very beginning. His experience in designing for mobile and his rapid prototyping skills have been crucial to the success of the project.
upon an issuu job opening while searching for something else online. It turns out they were close to removing the job posting because they already had several strong candidates in the queue. I feel very lucky to have landed
What was your path to issuu?
the job.
a digital communications agency
What is your favorite thing about working at issuu?
before pursuing my degree in
I really like the culture, the people
marketing management. Shortly
and the freedom you have here.
after graduation I landed a job as
There is always room to grab a
a Digital Designer and Frontend
coffee or play ping pong to get the
I started my professional career as a junior designer/developer at
Favorite issuu publishers: Sport Magazine