Hal Leonard Creates Interactive Music Magazine for Teachers & Students using InDesign & in5

The team at Hal Leonard publishing has created an amazing digital experience for music teachers and students.

Music Express magazine is in its 18th season and is available as a private download.

The team shared a recent issue with me and I’ve created the video below to show you what’s inside.

The publications includes

  • Embedded audio
  • Object states
  • Student slides
  • Demonstration videos
  • Links to support files
  • and tons of fun stuff to engage students

How They Did it

The interactivity was created visually with Adobe InDesign and exported using in5 (InDesign to HTML5).

The artwork is created by 5 in-house designers and assembled into the digital format by Production Team Leader, Nicole Julius.

The team started producing PDFs with limited interactivity years ago when learning management solutions started popping up in classrooms.

“We had often wished that we could offer HTML5 files, but didn’t have the in-house programmers or knowledge within our art department to be able develop what we wanted.”

“We also knew that outside programming would be cost prohibitive for the volume of items we wanted to create.”

“Our IT department is primarily devoted to maintaining the corporate websites, and this technology allows us to do some development for consumers that would not be possible otherwise.”

-Nicole Julius, Production Team Leader

The team bought in5 and put together a prototype of an all-inclusive digital magazine for teachers to try out.

The response from the teachers was overwhelmingly positive!

Now the team at Hal Leonard is producing regular digital issues.

Watch the video above to see their magazine in action.

Create your own prototype with in5

Get updates from Ajar Productions

Sign up today and get the InDesign Split Text premium extension for free!

Unsubscribe at any time. Powered by ConvertKit

Join the Conversation

  1. Roland says:

    How much is it. My website was created with Wix. Will it work with that.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *