Richard Branson’s Project magazine for iPad came out last week and it quickly climbed the charts of free and top grossing apps in Apple’s App Store. Fair enough, even if the app doesn’t revolutionize digital magazines on tablet it still features neat graphics and animations to appeal the average App Store user.
Branson may not know why the team decided to build it for the iPad and not the web – we think designers and magazine publishers will need to come up with something better than an animated cover to reinvent the publishing industry on Apple’s device.
If you feel like you can do something better, though, here’s your chance to design Project Mag’s next cover. As reported by Mashable, there’s a contest going on that allows designers from around the globe to submit their ideas for a new cover of Project Mag. Virgin apparently held a scavenger hunt both in NYC and San Francisco, hiding four paper mannequins containing the coordinates to USB keys with the details of the contest. Sounds pretty complex.
If you missed the hunt, Mashable uploaded the .zip file with all the details to Dropbox. Entries due by Dec. 15th, no money – just the glory and the chance to meet Branson someday. Or maybe a free ride on the Virgin Galactic. We’d choose the space thing.