‘The Earth’: A Beautifully Illustrated (and Educational!) App from Tinybop

The world of illus­tra­tion is always evolv­ing, and with it, new and excit­ing ways to com­mu­ni­cate using beau­ti­ful images. One way—and a favorite of mine—is through apps. There are so many dif­fer­ent approach­es to com­pos­ing and inter­act­ing with them, and when they’re done well, it’s a won­der­ful com­bi­na­tion of tech­nol­o­gy and art.

I’ve writ­ten about app-mak­ers Tiny­bop before: they were fea­tured in my How Did You Do That? series. I learned how they made Robot Fac­to­ry! Now, they’ve recent­ly launched The Earth, an inter­ac­tive mod­el that lets kids study and observe the geo­log­i­cal forces that change our plan­et. As always, they have a tal­ent­ed illus­tra­tor cre­at­ing their graph­ics, and this time it’s my pal Sarah Jaco­by! She’s infused her gor­geous style into every aspect of the edu­ca­tion­al app. Don’t these screen­shots look like land­scape paintings?!

From Tiny­bop:

Kids learn how plate tec­ton­ics, weath­er­ing, ero­sion, and depo­si­tion work by shap­ing the land with their fin­ger­tips. They can trig­ger earth­quakes, set off tsunamis and rock­slides, erupt vol­ca­noes, make a glac­i­er advance and recede, and cre­ate and destroy beaches.

The Earth is now avail­able in the Apple store!