Sam Oakley creates digital books website

The website’s founder and editor, Sophie Rochester, appointed graphic designer and typographer Oakley three months ago on the recommendation of a mutual friend. She and Oakley never met, or even spoke on the phone – a situation she terms ‘a sign of the digital times’.

Rochester says, ‘For economic reasons we decided to power the website with WordPress, which is a very cheap content-management system, but if you code it really carefully you can adapt it to make the website look good, which a few designers are able to do now.’

Oakley used a 16-column grid structure in an attempt to give the site the look and feel of a printed journal.

The Literary Platform launches at www.theliteraryplatform.com with a showcase project on the creation of an iPad app for Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and comment pieces from author Kate Pullinger and The Friday Project’s Robin Harvie.