Auteur Studio

Augmented Editions—A New Format for Publishing

The book
doesn’t end
on the page.

Auteur Studio builds living extensions of physical books—augmented reality experiences, character AI agents, and immersive browser worlds that expand the storyworld and bring readers inside it.

↓ See the work
“The experience is authored. The character has a voice. The book talks back.”

How We Work

Each Augmented Edition begins with the book’s authorial intent—its voice, its world, its characters—and extends it into digital space without breaking it.

Pages animate and reveal hidden worlds when a phone is pointed at them. Characters from the story come to life as conversational AI agents—speaking in their own voice, answering questions, guiding the reader deeper. On desktop, 3D objects and illustrations from the storyworld become interactive, with an embedded narrative agent pulling the reader forward at key moments.

This is not a companion app. It is the book, continued.

New Audiences

Point of Sale & Outdoor

Books come alive at retail with QR and NFC triggers—drawing in new readers who would not otherwise pick up a title.

Deeper Engagement

Narrative Extended

Characters, worlds, and historical contexts become discoverable—2× dwell time · 33% lift in re-engagement · 70%+ memory recall with AR content.

Direct Channel

Within the Experience

Sales links, related titles, event activations, and institutional licensing embedded natively—the experience itself becomes a revenue layer.

Sources: AR dwell time (Harvard Business Review) and re-engagement lift (Snap Inc.); memory-recall figures (Neuroscience Marketing). Cited as industry benchmarks.

Book cover of This Is New York by Miroslav Šasek—Joey the fireman driving a red car against a yellow skyline
This Is New York · Miroslav Šasek · 1960

Case Study—The Sasek Foundation

This Is New York

First published in 1960, and with millions of copies sold—Sasek’s perspective on New York is reborn as an Augmented Edition, with Joey the Fireman stepping off the cover.

The Author

Miroslav Sasek (1916–1980) was a Czech-born illustrator and author whose This Is… series—eighteen volumes published between 1959 and 1974—became one of the most beloved children’s travel book series of the twentieth century.

Born in Prague, Sasek studied at the School of Arts and Crafts before spending decades in Paris and Munich, absorbing the visual culture of postwar Europe. His books are distinguished by their flat-color illustration style, architectural precision, gentle wit, and an unusual quality of attention: he saw cities the way a curious child might, finding the dignified and the absurd with equal pleasure.

This Is New York, published in 1960, remains the series’ most iconic volume—a portrait of the city at its mid-century height, seen through Sasek’s characteristic economy of line. It has been continuously in print for over sixty years.

The Sasek Foundation preserves and extends the legacy of his work.

The Project

Auteur Studio was commissioned to create an Augmented Edition of This Is New York—the first in a proposed series of Sasek Augmented Editions.

The brief: bring the book’s world to life without breaking it. Sasek’s voice—dry, warm, playful—had to remain intact. The technology had to serve the story, not overwhelm it. The sense of wonder had to be central.

The result is a multi-platform experience: AR cover animation triggered by QR, a conversational character agent in the browser and on mobile, and a 3D desktop environment where scenes and characters from the book open up and become interactive.

At the center of it: Joey the Fireman.

This Is New York on a display table at a Los Angeles bookstore
Point of sale—Flagship Bookstore, Los Angeles

The Agent

Meet Joey the Fireman.

Joey steps off the cover of This Is New York and into a conversation. He knows the city—the landmarks, the subways, the history, the hot dog stands. He knows the book, its illustrations, the places Sasek drew. He talks the way a favorite uncle talks: slightly gruff, warm, full of energy.

He is built for children but speaks to everyone.

Live Agent

What Joey Can Do

Joey is a voice and text agent trained on the world of the book—its illustrations, its places, its NYC cultural context. He answers questions about the city, the fire department, and Sasek’s vision of New York.

He guides conversations—asking questions back, drawing the reader deeper, redirecting gently when needed. He speaks in short, friendly bursts. He uses the city’s own language.

Joey runs in the browser with no app required. He can be embedded in retail environments, event activations, and educational institutions. His voice model can be trained for emotional tone and audience—here, kid-friendly and playful; in other Augmented Editions, it becomes the voice of the architect, the artist, or the narrator.

The agent is the character. The character is the experience.

The AR Experience

Point the phone.
The world opens.

The cover of This Is New York becomes a trigger. Point a phone at the page and the city animates—elements from Sasek’s illustrations lift off the surface, Joey appears, and the world of the book expands into three dimensions.

No app required. Runs in the mobile browser. Triggered by QR code or NFC. Works at retail, at home, in a classroom, in an exhibition.

Live AR · Bookstore Activation, Los Angeles

The Experience, Continued

The same world,
at the scale of a room.

In a gallery, the Augmented Edition opens differently. The Statue of Liberty rises to full height, Sasek’s skyline assembles around the space, and Joey is there to meet you—the same character, the same storyworld, expanded into the room you’re standing in.

One format, many contexts: a phone at retail, a room-scale activation in a museum, an exhibition visitors walk through. The book changes, the character changes—the way in stays effortless.

Spatial AR · Gallery Activation

The Experience

Frames from the activation—retail, gallery, and in the hand.

AR pop-up of the This Is New York cover on a book at retail
Joey the Fireman as a 3D character
Room-scale Statue of Liberty and skyline in a gallery
Visitor with the book in a gallery space
Wide AR scene in a bookstore
Statue of Liberty AR among gallery artworks
Joey the Fireman in his red car, AR cover scene
Hot dog cart and skyline in AR
Statue of Liberty and skyline, gallery activation
Gallery scene with Statue of Liberty and a visitor
This Is New York skyline in AR
Room-scale Statue of Liberty and skyline in a gallery

Every book is a world.
Every world can be entered.

No App Required

Mobile-First, Always

The phone in the reader’s hand is the platform. A browser, a QR code, and the experience is live—in a store, at home, in a classroom, at an event.

AR & Spatial

Image-Based Interactivity

Point a phone at any page to unlock animated scenes, characters, and hidden layers—triggered by QR or NFC.

Character Agents

AI in the Book’s Voice

Conversational AI agents embodying characters, narrators, artists, or historical figures—speaking in their world, guiding readers through it.

Time & Location

Contextual Events

Experiences that respond to time of day, season, and location—animations that change, characters who know where you are.

Technical Platform

Augmented Editions run in the mobile browser—no app, no installation, no friction. The phone already in a reader’s hand is the platform. We build on our own WebAR and conversational agent stack, with QR and NFC triggers that work in retail, outdoor, institutional, and home environments—and we partner with other platforms where it serves the project.

Desktop 3D environments and XR-ready spatial experiences are available as expanded editions where the project calls for it.

WebARMobile BrowserDesktop 3DQR & NFC Triggers Voice AgentsText AgentsSpatial AudioXR Devices

Auteur Studio

Great books aren’t
just read.
They’re lived.

We work with publishers, foundations, and cultural institutions to build Augmented Editions—from initial concept to full experience delivery.

Talk to us →