How far can the digital book go? What will our children experience when they read a page in their biology book? These are some of the questions that Moving Design’s principle and co-founder, Rick Valicenti, in collaboration with Rockport Publishers, will be asking 24 interdisciplinary senior and graduate design students at the University of Illinois in a thought-provoking program called Tabula Rasa.

Tabula Rasa is the Latin for “blank slate.” It is the idea that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that their knowledge comes from experience and perception. Starting in August and continuing on to December, students at the University will be invited to conceive, model, and envision the reading experience with commercial potential on the iPad platform with no guidelines—just a “blank slate.” All the students will spend 6 weeks of the semester participating in design research and intense imagination of the e-book future experience. The research time will engage the students in their areas of interest and/or specialties. For example, graphic design student will design a 6 x 9 publication which will document the Tabula Rasa experience in print; interactive design students will be challenged with creating the digital version of Tabula Rasa’s journey; and animation students will create digital videos. Each step of the design process, discussions and discoveries will be posted on Tabula Rasa’s website each week so that the public can follow along.

The goal of Tabula Rasa is two-fold, states Rick Valicenti:

“Most importantly, it is a workshop environment designed to evolve the next generation into a self-motivated, innovated, thought leader. Secondly, our collective work will explore a very fresh vision for the future of the reading experience.”

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