Meet Peter Assentorp

Peter Assentorp has been the designer of issuu’s new reading experience from the very beginning. His experience in designing for mobile and his rapid prototyping skills have been crucial to the success of the project.

What was your path to issuu?

I started my professional career as a junior designer/developer at a digital communications agency before pursuing my degree in marketing management. Shortly after graduation I landed a job as a Digital Designer and Frontend

Developer at an advertising agency called Gottlieb & Co. After three years there, I stumbled upon an issuu job opening while searching for something else online. It turns out they were close to removing the job posting because they already had several strong candidates in the queue. I feel very lucky to have landed the job.

What is your favorite thing about working at issuu?

I really like the culture, the people and the freedom you have here. There is always room to grab a coffee or play ping pong to get the

Title: Designer

Office: Copenhagen

Since: July 2014

Favorite issuu publishers: Sport Magazine blood flowing again and it also feels great to be surrounded by so many smart brains every day. I feel human here. If I had to choose my favorite thing about working here I’d probably say being able to touch so many people's lives around the world feels pretty good. It’s sometimes crazy to think that what I’m designing is going to be seen and used by millions of people every month.

What is your favorite issuu core value and how do you live it?

I’d say ownership is probably my favorite. It’s so important for a company of our size. Ownership to me means taking responsibility and never assuming it’s someone else’s problem. If I see something that doesn’t work or doesn’t look right, I’ll try fixing it myself first. If I can’t, then I’ll find a person who has the skills to help me get it done.

What has been your biggest challenge this past year?

Without a doubt designing the new issuu from the bottom up. It definitely wasn’t an easy task to redesign the core product that has served us well for almost a decade — and is the reason why we still exists today. It was especially tough to think many steps ahead while designing to ensure that all the pieces would fit together in the future since we couldn’t build everything at once.

What part of the new reading experience are you most proud of?

I’m mostly proud of how we’ve unified our reading experience. In the past we’ve had different interfaces for different browsers — meaning the interface would change depending on whether or not your browser has Flash. Even though it's being used by more people all the time, it's been a technical challenge to maintain. It’s been our goal for more than a year to have one codebase and one interface. I’m really amazed at how the entire company has rallied together to finally reach that milestone.

How do you think readers and publishers are going to react to the new reading experience?

It’s a pretty big change we’ve made to the whole reading experience. Not only have the publisher embeds changed but also the reading experience on issuu.com. Everything has a brand new look and feel, which I think both publishers and readers will love once they start playing around with it. We’ve really spent a lot of time ensuring that they're getting the best possible reading experience.