Adobe launched an iPad app called Slate early in 2015, and with it a promise that anyone could create a visually rich web based ‘story’ with very little effort. The app lets you pick a theme, add some text, photos, basic effects and other web-friendly features, and lets you publish to its website.
I’ve had the app installed for months but couldn’t think of a compelling reason to use it – afterall, I have the skills to build a proper website if I need to, or I could post something via my Medium account or some other blog platform. However, I decided to test it out by compiling a guide to the Capcom classic arcade game Forgotten Worlds.
My slate, built over several nights, can be found here: https://slate.adobe.com/cp/VmT5b/, or view it at the bottom of this post.
Putting it together was very easy, if a little limited by the assets you have to hand. I spent one night working on a high quality version of the game logo, just because I wasn’t happy with the limited choices that Slate offered me to position and size the logo I found in a web search.
I’m not sure if I’ll create anything else with Slate as I think there are better ways to develop the content that interests me and I don’t think my retrospective look at a 27 year old arcade game is really the type of story that Adobe is targetting. Perhaps I’ll look again if Adobe add the ability to link Slates together, giving me the option to create something much more akin to a full website.
