Author: Team Blookup

Giant Flipbooks in the woods of New Hampshire

Posted on by Team Blookup

If you venture in the woods outside the city of Strafford, New Hampshire, you most likely will stumble upon several giant Flipbooks. You probably owned a similar (but smaller) version of those as a child.

For those who are not familiar with Flipbooks, the idea is simple. They are books filled with drawings that, as you flip through the pages, create an animation and tell you a short story.

new-hampshire-woods-giant-flibook-red-bird-daytime

Mobile Studio, an architecture firm based in London. They  applied this concept on a much larger scale with the help of children from the local summer camp called Beam Camp. The result is astonishing !  Giant boxes filled with drawings that you can flip through with a crank!

But we are not done yet,  the boxes containing the drawings were built in such a way that the boxes will reflect their surroundings (here the woods) during the day using a special film on the panels, and let the mechanism visible at night thanks to in-built LEDs.

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Due to the Flipbooks’ close link with nature, the young campers decided to draw each flap so that it will create animations of bird behavior when one would crank through the book’s pages. “These are the world’s largest mechanical flipbooks ever made“ as stated by Mobile studio’s director Chee-Kit lai.

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Source – Photos credits: Emily Wilson

                                                     An article by BlookUp 

Turn your blog into a book with BlookUp!

Posted on by Team Blookup

Are you part of the 250 million people who own a blog all around the world ? Whether you blog for fun or make a living out of it, BlookUp gives you the opportunity to turn your blog into an actual paper book.

Make your own blook and join the 12 000 other bloggers who did the same before you!

Printing your blog? But…why? There are a lot of reasons why you should print your blog, here are the main ones.

reading-book-computer

1 – First and foremost, to protect your content

As seen in the news recently, nobody’s safe from a bug that would ultimately delete our blogs.

Unfortunately, we cannot predict what will become of our blogs in the next 5, 10 or 20 years. By then, it is likely that a lot of data will disappear.

2 – There is nothing like a book.

There is something exhilarating in holding the result of countless hours of writing, you should try!

 Once you will receive your blook, you will experience the feeling of flipping through the pages full of articles and pictures, feel the authenticity of the paper under your fingertips and you will ask yourself. “How come I didn’t make my blook earlier?”.

3 -It adds extra value to your work

Printing a blog allows its author to experience it on another perspective.

Very few are those who take the time to dive into their archives full of old pictures, stories and memories.

You will realize what a year, or even a lifetime worth of writing looks like. 

With a book, you see your content in a new light, rediscover your articles and relive your best moments in pictures!

You add something truly unique to your work when you make a book, something that makes you proud and arouses admiration of others. Because making the book of your blog is a unique experience, after all, you are making YOUR book.

Making your blook is a creative process, the bloggers who decide to make theirs customize the cover and page layout thus bringing to life what used to be a digital object and turning it into a  book everyone can share and enjoy. 

The result of this process is truly priceless ! Because blogs are often personal, they are about families and friends, they require a lot of time and dedication to put into them, whether it be for the writing, posting on social media, or even interact with the readers.

The more the authors put time into their blog, the more they want to keep a written record of it. In a world where everything tends to be over-digitized and the content ephemeral, there is something truly special and almost relieving in putting aside the internet for a while and immortalizing your blog in the form of a book.

4 – It is the best way to keep it close to you!

There is nothing like a book to read through your blog posts again and again, sharing anecdotes and remembering some events. All while being comfortably seated on your couch! Say what you want about tablets, kindles and laptops, but nothing matches the authentic experience of a book…plus it is waaay more convivial!

5 – You can share it with the people close to you!

Share your blook or offer a copy to your relatives and your friends and see how they experience your blog page after page. Everything is real and authentic, they will be holding in their bare hands the result of your work and it is more pleasant than having to read the articles on a computer screen.  Also, remember that not everyone in your family (take your parents or grand parents as an example) is comfortable with using devices like a tablet or a laptop, and for them what you call “blogging” is something they might not understand. Luckily for them, BlookUp has THE solution: offering them a printed copy of your blog!

6 – You can sell it!

Your book can have a real monetary value if the content you wrote interests other people. BlookUp, gives you the possibility to make your blook “public”, this way it will appear on the Blookshop. You can sell it at the price you want and tell you friend to check it out on BlookUp and order it online! Who knows, this might be the beginning of your career as a writer that just started!

What will my book look like?

Electric blue paper-wrapped bookWith BlookUp you can make all kinds of books. Here are some tips to help you getting started:

First you have to create your blook by choosing among all the platform the one you want to import your blog from and selecting your favorite articles, or by defining a time period (“Articles from 2016…”  or a theme. You can also choose to only keep the pictures and make an album or remove all of them. Here are all the different formats and platforms you can choose from:

  • 15×15 cm (Instagram only)
  • 15×21 cm and 20×27 cm (blog book formats)
  • 15×14,8 cm and 21×29,7 cm  (PDF only)
  • 19×26 cm (Facebook only)

You  can order a single book if you want to! You can print as many books as you want and benefit from an excellent manufacturing quality thanks to on-demand digital printing. 

Print the books of your Facebook and Instagram!

blook-facebook-first-pageIf you do not own a blog you can always print a book out of your Facebook page or Instagram. Nowadays people like to share everything they do on social media. And while we tend to create more and more content online, BlookUp  takes it the other way around by Immortalizing your digital content in form of paper books.

The Facebook book is available in an exclusive format (20×26 cm) and lets you choose between 2 different layouts (2 or 3 columns). You can choose a time period over which you want to import your content from. BlookUp automatically imports all the content you published on your Facebook page  automatiquement tout le contenu publié sur votre compte Facebook (statuses, photos videos, places you visited, comments…) then you can choose the types of content you want to appear on your blook as well as the number of comments.

That’s exactly the same with Instagram! You can choose the pictures you want to keep along with the time period. Your book will be printed in a 15×15 cm format.instagram-blook-opened-flowers

How can I create my book? Is it complicated?

You can start by importing your blog (Go ahead, you can do that for free!) by clicking on the platform you want to import content from. Then all you have to do is to register and go with the flow!

As we previously mentioned, you can customize your blook in a lot of different ways (Types of content, font, page layout, cover, etc…) Once you are happy with your book, you can order it and you will receive it within 15 business days.

They tried it and they loved it!

Grisélidis, founder of Yes We Blog.

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“You spend hours writing articles for your blog, taking pictures and editing them. But even though it is a thing in the digital world, you still can’t touch it. It’s not like a good old book you’d be reading at the parc. Having your blog on a book format adds another dimension to this little place of the internet that we love and take care of. I also think that it is a very cute and friendly way of sharing what we do with people who are not very familiar with web-related stuff. Believe it or not, but there are still quite a lot of people that are not so interested in the internet.”

Marion Legras, globetrotter and blogger

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“Our blog contains all the 367 articles about the 19 countries we visited and more than five times as many pictures we wanted to keep in the form of a series of books dedicated to this dream come true. It was very important for us to keep a written record of our memories abroad, that all our writings and pictures will not be forever imprisoned behind a computer screen or lost somewhere inside a folder. These books allow us to dive into these wonderful memories at any moment and there is nothing that can match this feeling!”

Pauline Savary, author of “Pauline savary’s daily“

pauline-savary-daily“It is an interesting project with a lot of advantages. Whoever is looking for a job and wants to keep a tangible record of his/her blog (assuming that the said blog is relevant for the job), easily readable and enhanced by the paper format and/or with exclusive content, will certainly be intrigued. Blookup will prove interesting to professional bloggers, fashion bloggers and photographers who are very focused on design and visuals. It is also a good idea to offer it a gift. As for the commercial aspect of the books, that remains to be seen…”

Sandra, nerdy mom, author of “Le blog d’une maman geekette“

sandra-maman-geek

“Blookup is a great way of keeping track and promoting your blog. It can be offered to your parents or grand parents and can also be an excellent memory for  wedding blogs.”

Tip : A secret door inside a bookshelf!

Posted on by Team Blookup

Good day to you fellow blookers!

I don’t know about you but when I was a kid, I always wanted to be like Batman and have a secret door with a secret room room behind a bookcase, just for the sake of it. So when I heard that there actually was a company that was making it a reality I knew I had to share it with you guys.

At first look, you wouldn’t think that there actually is a hidden room behind that bookcase; secret passages are only a thing in movies, video games and novels after all, right?  Ha, joke’s on you! Because this bookcase actually folds in the middle thus revealing the hidden room,  safe, wine cellar, or anything you’d rather not have everyone see.

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wooden-bookshelf-door-open-room-behind-revealed

If you don’t like the vanilla look of the door, you can choose among different sizes, color and woods then pick the one that fits best. You can also choose to add a lock so the door won’t open! Turning it into a regular bookshelf and blocking the access to the room behind it…

If you are brave enough however, you can try to build your own secret door like this man. It will certainly take time and A LOT of efforts but at last you can be proud of yourself and ultimately spend the rest of your time hidden inside your secret lair pretending you’re Bruce Wayne in the Batcave (Which is totally not what I would to if I had one at home…).

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Sources here and here – Photos credits: Woodfold

Print the book of your brand’s Facebook page!

Posted on by Team Blookup

Turn your brand’s Facebook page into a book with BlookUp!

As a Community manager or Social media manager, the role you play in the online communication of your brand, company or even association is central. Whether you operate within a communication agency or inside your own company, Facebook is a major tool that you use on a daily basis; which implies that you constantly need to keep track of what you do on the page.

That’s exactly what BlookUp offers you. Currently leading the book of blog market in both France and Europe, our platform now targets digital marketing and social media professionals/experts with a physical record allowing them to keep track of their company’s presence on Facebook.

A brand new way of promoting your company

Immortalize your interactions with your fans, your best events or marketing operations, your most popular photos and posts, keeping a written record of your work year after year or even surprise your collaborators, customers and partners by offering them the book of your company’s Facebook… For all these reasons, this product is made for you! BlookUp gives you the opportunity to get your hands on your company’s or brand’s own book. Because there is nothing like a book to record your interactions with your community and keep them close to you.

How does it work?

You can create your book in a few clicks: All you have to do is to sign in to BlookUp.com, choose a Facebook page for which you are the admin and the time span over which you want your book to be about. After having successfully imported the content, the book organizes all your posts, videos, photos, places visited as well as the comments on your page into an smooth layout. This layout remains customizable, which means you can select which type of content you want to keep, change the color of your theme, front and back covers and visualize the changes in real time.

All that’s left for you to do is ordering it online, the book will be shipped within 8 business days at the location of your choice.

What are you waiting for to print and get your hands on the book of your company’s Facebook page ?

 

Dogs and Humans finding trust and confidence by reading

Posted on by Team Blookup

We already know that reading for ourselves has several beneficial effects. Escaping to other universes brings us solace, discovering other cultures opens our mind, we can learn, imagine, travel, ease our mind.

 But we don’t often read to others and communicate those feelings. Thus making reading a solitary hobby and, above all, a very “human” hobby.

But can reading be used to both build confidence in children and help abandonned dogs to trust humans again?

This strange-sounding question is what started the Shelter Buddies Reading Program, created by the Humane Society of Missouri.

Helping Dogs Relax !

The idea is to ask children and young people (between 6 and 15 years-old) to volunteer at the shelter in order to practice their reading and public speaking skills by reading one (or more!) book(s) to lonely dogs waiting in their kennel.

They freely decide which book(s) to read and the dog they want to read it to, they sit in front of him or her and initiate the first contact.

Girl sitting on the floor reading to a dog

Jo Ellyn Klepacki, assistant director of the Missouri Humane Society explains that the goal of the program is to get the dogs to move from the back of the kennel to the front, as dogs staying near the front of their kennel get adopted more quickly than the others. Knowing this, it’s easy to understand how slowly adjusting them to the presence of kind humans can help them trust people again and find a new loving home faster.

Boy sitting on the floor reading to a dog

“We started this for two reasons”, Klepacki adds, “Dogs in a shelter environment exhibit a lot of signs of anxiety and show stress signals, so we wanted to do something to comfort them. We have a lot of children in our area who are really engaged and they ask, ‘How can I help?’” 

Children sitting in front of dog kennels reading to them

The program benefits both dogs and the young volunteers, who are able to practice their aloud-reading skills in a safe and nonjudgmental environment. Thus also helping to tame their fear of audiences. The shelter encourages them to generally interact with the dogs as well, by talking to them and by passing them treats if they make their way to the front of the glass.

The program is a success, and you can still become a Reading Buddy now if you want to help!

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Source – Photos credits: Humane Society of Missouri, abcnews and twistedsifter

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Andy Smith, turning 10 years’ worth of paintings into books!

Posted on by Team Blookup

Do you like art?  Yeah we thought so.

In this week’s interview Andy Smith tells us about his love for watercolor painting, the challenge of “A Painting A Day” he took on years ago and the process of making a blook out of his work!

Andy Smith Drawing

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Continue reading “Andy Smith, turning 10 years’ worth of paintings into books!” →

Japanese blooming newspaper, the Mainichi Shinbun!

Posted on by Team Blookup

News literally sowing and blooming to make gardens and balconies more beautiful!

In the collective imagination, we see paper burning to warm us during cold winter times or to light our barbecues !  But we don’t think about making it recyclable to the point of returning it to the earth!
Japanese Newspaper writing

Green Newspaper table presentation Continue reading “Japanese blooming newspaper, the Mainichi Shinbun!” →

Index Update: New fonts and Index Options

Posted on by Team Blookup

NEW FONTS TO PRINT YOUR BLOG!

A font board Your blog has its atmosphere, its personality, and its paper version must absolutely reflect it? After several weeks of testing and researching, we finally found the fonts you needed to make your blook more unique and extraordinary!

In addition to Arial and Times New Roman, choose THE font that will have the honor to represent the spirit of your blog among the 7 new proposed:

Economica, DejaVuSans, Lato, Free Serif, Noto Sans, Noto Serif and Courier New

QUESTIONING THE INDEX…

blook-example-table-of-contentsNot everyone needs a table of content in his or her blook, and we have been asked several times to make this feature optional, or to have the possibility to place the index at the beginning of the book instead of the end.

Weel, starting today, choose to keep your index or not, and to place it before or after your main content!choice-table-of-contents

Bookstore recycling,​ used books all around!

Posted on by Team Blookup

With World Book Day coming the day after tomorrow, there’s something that has to be said! Cultivating oneself is often expensive. Once you start stacking books in your arms, prices can add up very quickly without you noticing it until the very end!

Even if choosing the pocket format can help, accessing the book market at full price sadly isn’t for everyone. This is where the used books market comes in!

Recycle Bookstore is one of many actors of this market today, but started proposing used books over 40 years ago (1962)! Its concept is to sell thousands of books at low prices, from many different universes and about a lot of topics: Art, Science-Fiction, History, Science, classic literature, gardening…

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Campbell’s kid section (above) and San Jose’s Art, History and Photography section (below)

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The books proposed at the Bookstore  are donated or traded, so there’s always new ones to chose from.

Two bookstores are open, one in San Jose and one in Campbell (both in California), and both are pretty well-rated on Yelp! Of course, they propose different books on certain topics, but that’s one of the things that make those shops special!

What are the other things, will you ask?

Well, they also propose some DVDs and CDs, rare, signed or limited-edition books, friendly staff and… Cats.

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recycle-bookstore-ginger-cat

Those cuties aren’t for sale, but you can enjoy their company while you wander around and browse the shelves looking for your next literature treasure!

So if you happen to drop by San Jose or Campbell, and if you’re not allergic to cat fur, don’t forget to check out those awesome book stores!

Cinemagraphs Harry Potter-themed!​

Posted on by Team Blookup

At BlookUp, we often face some technical constraints that can not be removed though we’d love to. Among them is the integration of gifs! You surely have already dreamt about illustrations that move by themselves on paper pages!

No need for sound! It’s all about the pleasure of seeing the clouds move, people smile, all of this while continuing to enjoy the rough and soft touch of a paper book…

There’s a fascinating universe in which we can find such an object: The one of Harry Potter, of course! Somebody else loved the idea of moving pictures! Daria Khoroshavina, a Russian artist, who combined her talents in photography and animation in order to illustrate, in her own way, how wizards in her “Halloween Potions and Spells”gallery!

A book with an image in motion “So, according to that picture, if my shrinking potion is red and filled with bubbles, I messed up”

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But what are Cinemagraphs anyway?

Well, while gifs play a complete animation without necessarily making the transition between the beginning and the end very subtle, cinemagraphs are usually produced by animating only a part of a photo in a continuous and fluid-like movement that contrasts with the rest of the picture, that remains motionless.

A Harry Potter book cinemagraphIs the definition still a little obscure? “Lumos” !

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Cinemagraphs originally come from the world of fashion and have already been adaptedy by several artists in various ranges of magnificent and relaxing animated images that you can watch with the sound of the rain or the sea in the background!

Wanna see more?

  • Cinemagraphs.com, the website created by Kevin Burg and Jamie Beck who are also the creators of the concept of Cinemagraphs!
  • Philippe Cabaret and his blog Philippoc, a French photographer often paying tribute to Paris through his creations.

And if you feel like this is going to be your new hobby, you can even find applications to make your own cinemagraphs!

A Harry Potter cinemagraph book

cinemagraph-harry-potter-incendioAguamenti and Incendio spells. You can combine the two in order to make cooking pastas way cooler than it actually is.

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It’s now up to you to check out Daria Khoroshavina’s other cinemagraphs and works on her wesbite!

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Source article – Pictures : Daria Khoroshavina