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About Apt

Apt specialises in culturally significant projects, particularly in publishing, the arts and literature.

The Golden Notebook project was a groundbreaking experiment in its ambition to create a ’social reading’ of one of the 20th century’s most important texts – and in my mind nobody could have executed it as well as Apt Studio.

The Apt guys are a powerful combination of great design/UX skills and professional understanding of – and relentless curiosity about – the reader experience at a deep cultural level. The result is always interesting, and often creates a project that isn’t just an interesting press-worthy occurrence, but that turns out to be a key stepping stone in book publishing’s journey to the heart of the 21st century.
Kate Hyde, HarperCollins

Working with Apt on james-frey.com has been a joy. Planning, design and development have all been done with a terrific combination of imagination and perfectionism, and the resulting site is of an exceptionally high standard. Post-launch I couldn’t have asked for better support.
James Spackman, Hodder

Peter

Peter Collingridge has worked at the maverick edge of publishing since 1997. He began his career at Canongate Books after completing an MA in literature by writing his dissertation on (Massive Attack’s) Tricky. At Canongate he edited Gil Scott Heron, a photography book on Andy Warhol’s Factory Years, and worked on both The Pocket Canons – a radical reworking of the bible – and Damien Hirst’s Snowblind limited edition.

After working in each department of the fledgling house, he ran the Canongate website (”a cool club stocked with well-read friends rather than a lazy corporate exercise” – The Guardian) and launched an internet radio station for author readings. He also produced over 15 “pop promos for books” for authors from Yann Martel to Doug Coupland, Gil Scott Heron to Bret Easton Ellis.

He set up Apt Studio, a digital consultancy to publishers in 2005, and has worked on a broad range of digital publishing strategies, from print on demand and customised books to ecommerce and crowdsourcing. Clients range from HarperCollins and Random House to global accountancy firm Grant Thornton (whose global rebrand he consulted on), to the complete digitisation of Granta Magazine and the charity website of Granta’s new owner, Sigrid Rausing.

Peter was named by The Evening Standard as one of London’s most influential 50 people in publishing, shortlisted for the British Council’s Young Publishing Entrepreneur of the Year, and has given a number of talks including delivering the opening keynote at the 2010 O’Reilly Tools of Change publishing conference in New York.

Talks

Fail Harder – Video
More info about this talk here and here

Fail Harder – Slides

Fail Harder – with notes – Pecha Kucha to SYP

O’Reilly Tools of Change Conference, Feb 2010
Keynote: Enhancing the eBook

London Book Fair 2010
Pecha Kucha, New Thinking, New Models

Interviews

The View from Here:
London Book Fair 2010

Publishing Perspectives: The Digital Innovators

Press

Peter has written numerous articles and contrinbuted to The Bookseller and the trade press, as well as the national newspapers. (Subscription may be required for some of these):