think native

I am regularly impressed with the people at Penguin UK for their willingness to embrace new ways of telling stories. First there was their wiki-book experiment A Millions Penguins that invited mass-collaboration to create a slightly schizoid tale.

Then came We Tell Stories - a project that took six respected authors and challenged them to add dynamism into traditional writing through the use of social media and twitter, googlemaps and live online writing sessions.

So I was impressed again when I noticed a number of blank covered books in my local bookshop that invites readers to create their own cover designs for classic stories. Perhaps less geeky than their previous experiments, but the first (as far as I can tell) that marries their traditional publishing business with a experience co-creation concept. The project, called My Penguin, invites readers who have created covers to share their work online to sit alongside celebrity efforts from Beck, Razorlight and Ryan Adams. Sweet.

And if you get bored designing book covers why not design a tshirt for Boxfresh and win stuff (judged by the Boxfresh community, natch).