Magazines are normally printed in sections, typically of 16 pages, which may be in black-and-white, full colour or spot colour. Each section is then bound either by stapling them within a soft cover in a process sometimes referred to as “saddle-stitching”, or by gluing them together to form a spine, a process often called “perfect-binding”.

Nowadays there are various magazine printing techniques that combine various core elements that influence in the final product, publishing schedules, formats and target audiences play an important role when choosing a magazine printing technique.

Magazines have become an extremely competitive business, mainly because magazines turned into an important advertisement channel with the majority of publications aimed at consumers, employees and buyers. Here we have 5 different magazine printing examples.

Magazine Printing Example #1 Café Europe

Magazine Printing Example #2 Kemptown Rag

Magazine Printing Example #3 Tombridgian

Magazine Printing Example #4 Today’s Therapist

Magazine Printing Example #5

Business card designs and printing techniques have since evolved into dozens of modern techniques for business people to choose from. Without the right knowledge, you could end up choosing the wrong type of business card.

To aid our readers on their quest for the ideal business card, we decide to list some of the best business card printing techniques available. They are:

Die Cut Business Card

Once printed, a cutting form is used to cut the shape out of flat sheets. More on this technique in upcoming posts.

Foil Block Business Card

Foil blocking is another example of business card printing with a high quality printing finish. Foil blocked business cards are the ultimate choice for creating business cards with decorative appeal.

Embossed Business Card

Thermography creates a raised print effect and can add texture to a business card by keeping it clean, simple and understatedly stylish.

Spot UV Business Card

Spot UV is a high-gloss UV varnish applied to a selected area of a printed image. Embossing creates a stunning 3D effect on a business card. Embossing is particularly effective when used in conjunction with other processes i.e. matt lamination and spot UV with the spot UV image embossed out of the lamination (or foil blocking and embossing).

Augmented Reality Business Cards (3D Business Cards)

This new business card printing technique might be in its infancy, but it shows just how much the business card industry can still evolve. The creator of this revolutionary business card is James Alliban.

Claimed by its creator as the world’s first augmented reality business card. James Alliban added to the back of his business cards a graphic that can be captured by a webcam and reproduce a cool 3D grid of coloured planes pop ups.

For a better understanding, we’ve added a video to help you get a nice picture of this - dare we say - boundary-pushing business card printing technique.

Don’t miss our upcoming posts where we’ll look at each of these printing techniques in more detail.

One industry in particular that has been investing thousands of pounds in environmentally friendly techniques is the printing industry; where many printers are modifying their printing processes in order to work under the “Green Printing” label.

There are many international and national accreditations that can ensure a printer is offering environmentally friendly printing services.

One of the most important accreditations is the ISO 14001 environmental management standards. This international standard specifies the actual requirements for an EMS - Environmental Management System. It applies to those environmental aspects which the organisation has control over and it can be expected to have an influence. The ISO 14001 environmental management standards exist to help organisations minimize how their operations negatively affect the environment and cause adverse changes to air, water, or land.

Another respectful international accreditation is the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council), a certification system that provides internationally recognized standard-setting, trademark assurance and accreditation services to companies, organizations, and communities interested in responsible forestry.

Along the same line we have the PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes) which provides an assurance mechanism to purchasers of wood and paper products that they are promoting the sustainable management of forests.

The Woodland Trust is the UK’s leading woodland conservation charity and printers sponsoring WT’s Tree for All Campaign are sure contributing for a greener UK.

With these 4 green credentials a printer can sure label itself an environmentally friendly printer.

Price

Windows 7 – Not confirmed yet. Speculations are that the Home Version will be around 50-70 USD while the Professional Version will start at 100 USD.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard – Prices for Apple’s new (upgraded) OS start at 29 USD, for Leopard users, Mac users with older versions, like Tiger, are forced to buy the full box set  which includes iWork and iLife at 169 USD.  However this upgrade is for Intel Mac’s only this is the end of the line of the older Power processor based MAC’s

Storage Footprint

Windows 7 – Minimum requirements are: 16GB for the 32-bit OS and 20GB for the 64-bit OS, but footprint seem to be about 6-8GB.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard – Gives back 6 GB of storage space and only requires 5 GB of free disk space. (due mostly to being Intel only)

Hardware Support

Windows 7 – When it comes down to hardware support Windows 7 outshines Snow Leopard, reports are that a 7 year old Pentium 4 2.8Ghz with 2GB of RAM does an outstanding job.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard – Meanwhile, Snow Leopard will only run on Intel Macs, which means that high-end Macs like the Power Mac G5 will be left in the cold.

Start/Sleep/Shutdown

Windows 7 – Improved Start/Sleep/Shutdown time, with start up times under 30s.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard – Apple doesn’t say much about start up times, but promises to cut by half wakeup times and 1.75x faster shutdowns.

Media Handling

Windows 7 – Windows Media Player will handle any type of media you throw at it, H.264, Divx, Xvid or AAC, etc.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard – The new QuickTime player is also capable of handling a broader range of formats and handles H.264 and AAC even better than Windows 7. Another advantage is that QuickTime X Pro comes with Snow Leopard, no need to pay an extra for it.

Networking

Windows 7 – A real improvement when compared to Vista, with improved wireless connectivity and a smart way of finding files on your network.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard – 1.55 time faster at joining networks than Leopard and more efficient file sharing. It will also interwork better with Microsoft the exchange mail server which is a plus for larger corporate users who use exchange.

Browsers

Windows 7 – Internet Explorer 8 is by far the best browser we’ve seen by Microsoft.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard – With a real modern web standards support Safari is a good option, especially when handling JavaScript programs, where it is faster than IE 8.

Conclusion

Overall Windows 7 is a more substantial upgrade than Snow Leopard which is more akin to a service pack, though for technical/political reasons only some XP users will be able to upgrade to it. Others XP users will need to do a fresh install while Mac users are forced to have Leopard installed. Second Windows 7 can run on older machines as mentioned above, Mac users will need a fairly new Mac Book or iMac to run apple’s refined OS.

On the professional side, Apple’s OS will still lead the way thanks to its ability to handle huge amounts of RAM which will still make the Mac OS X 10.6 an indispensable tool for the printing industry though you may need to upgrade to 64 bit versions of the applications you use to get the full advantage.

August 28th was to be the official released date, but Mac users can buy or upgrade from older versions to the Snow Leopard via the Apple Store now, while shipping’s will start on Friday the 28th.

As most of you already know Mac OS X Snow Leopard or Mac OS X 10.6 is an upgrade for Mac OS X Leopard or if you prefer Mac OS X 10.5, according to Apple Snow Leopard is a refined OS making it the word’s most advanced operating system.

With an extensive list of “refinements” I suggest you read “Mac OS X Snow Leopard – A Refined OS by Apple” and for even further information visit the Apple Store.

Choosing the right printing finish will give life to your business cards, for example an Embossed Business Card will create a raised print effect and can add texture to a business card by keeping it clean, simple and stylish.

Talking about giving life to your business cards, James Alliban just created the world’s first augmented reality business card. James added to the back of his business cards a graphic that can be captured by a webcam and reproduce a cool 3D grid of coloured planes pop ups.

This video will help you get a better picture of this new business card printing technique.

AR Business Card from James Alliban on Vimeo.

While this business card printing technique is in its early days, it will be interesting to see what other improvements can be made.

Back then, Apple Macintosh personal computers made history as the first PC’s to feature a mouse and use images (graphical user interface) rather than text (command line interface), which helped the company build market shares through the second half of the 80’s.

The first ever Mac to go on sale back in 1984, had 128 KB RAM in form of sixteen 64 kilobit (Kb) chips soldered to the logicboard, even though there wasn’t a memory slot at the time, the RAM was expandable to 512 KB, which meant soldering sixteen chip sockets to accept 256 Kb RAM chips, the final product also used the complete QuickDraw picture language displayed via a 9-inch 512×342 pixel monochrome display and microprocessor speed was at remarkable 8 megahertz.

If we compare it to the soon be to released Mac OS X Snow Leopard, the first Macintosh OS looks more than obsolete, I would say pre-historic, even though all those features were pretty advanced for their time.

It is quite clear how much Apple’s OS evolved since then, but let’s compare a few features.

The new Mac OS X V10.6 will have support to 16TB RAM, that is 16×10⁺⁶ times more than the 1984 Mac offered with its support to 512 KB RAM.

A new graphic system has been implemented, since the Mac OS X v10.4 QuickDraw had to be deprecated mainly for not been able to make use of the 64-bit support, QuickDraw than gave space to Quartz a more modern graphics system which can handle 64-bit applications, 64-bits apps will be the core of the new Mac OS X Snow Leopard.

What about the display options available compared to the 9-inch 512×342 pixel monochrome display that came with the 1984 Mac? Now that is something with no margin for comparison. How can we compare the LCD and Plasma displays of today and their trillions of colours to a monochrome display?

The new Mac OS X v10.6 is set to be an OS for generations to come, can you imagine how it will look like 20 years from now. Think about it and leave your thoughts in our comments section

Back in June 2008, right after Steve Jobs announced the new version of the Mac OS X Snow Leopard was to be released some time this year, we previewed it here and highlighted some of the improved features.

As we get closer to its official release date, the Mac OS X Snow Leopard or if you prefer Mac OS X v10.6 is due to a more detailed preview.

First things first, Apple’s “refined” operating system will be available from September 09 with prices starting at $29 (for users updating from Mac OS X Leopard).

The Mac OS X Snow Leopard is not a brand new OS by Apple, it is simply, as Apple like to call it, a refined version of the Mac OS X Leopard, prove to that is Apple focus on improving and simplifying built-in applications to make it faster, more reliable and most importantly easier to use.

The first major improvement was to make the Mac OS X V10.6 installation faster, easier and more reliable, upgrading from older versions just got 45% faster and in case of a power cut, it can start again without losing any data. Disk space usage has also been reduced by half, freeing about 6GB.

A completely new QuickTime Player has also been included, which will feature optimised support for modern codecs, new trimming interface, easy uploads to YouTube and MobileMe and hhtp-based live streaming, all with improved colour accuracy.

But without a doubt the biggest refinement is the transition from 32-bit to 64-bit, this means a support of up to 16 TB RAM, you might think that Apple exaggerated a bit on the RAM support, but it wasn’t just the other day when we were happy with our 256 MB RAM PC’s and look at them now, obsolete.

Nearly all built-in applications are now 64-bit which makes them faster and more responsive.

For the printing industry the good news is the ZFS File system with support for storage pooling, data redundancy, automatic error correction, dynamic volume expansion and snapshots, this will allow applications like Photoshop to make better use of multi core systems and larger memory configurations.

No doubt Apple has built the Mac OS X Snow Leopard thinking away ahead of its time, this new OS is ready for the next generation of professional and personal computers.

What do you have to say about Apple’s refined operating system, will it stand up to expectations?

A Dutch company has come up with a clever way of saving some of the huge amount of ink that gets used in office inkjets and laser printers these days. Rather than developing complex systems to save in Holland-based Sprang has gone back to first principals and designed a ‘greener’ typeface, Ecofont, which features circles of blank space embedded in each letter they say.

“After Dutch holey cheese, there now is a Dutch font with holes as well.”

Sprang co-founder Gerjon Zomer claims the use of circular holes, means the font uses 20% less ink than traditional fonts, while maintaining readability.

Zomer says that the

“power of Ecofont is its simplicity”. He added: “There are a lot of complicated solutions out there to save ink, but they don’t usually appeal to people.”

Spang started by looking at popular Dutch font Verdana. The team deleted thin vertical strips within each letter, but found the text to be unreadable on most computer screens. It then tried cutting squares and stars out of fonts, but soon realised circles were most effective.

The advantage of changing the font is that it works on all printers and doesn’t require new printer/hardware just changing a fonts – computers only use this font when printing sticking with the tried and tested truetype for display on monitors.

You can download Ecofont  from www.ecofont.eu as its the sort of elegant solution Apple is known for I bet Apple are kicking them selves for not thinking of this.

The covers were printed and bound as an A/B/C/D split to give retailers four covers to choose from.

The Radio times website has a feature on this here you can also see some examples of our magazine printing work on our printing services page

The 17” MacBook Pro is handsome and impressive-looking with its aluminium casing and black screen frame. The display is bright, colourful and glossy, though you can choose a matt screen instead.

The standout feature of the 17” MacBook Pro is the battery life, claimed to be up to 8 hours, even while you’re surfing the web.

The keyboard is exceptionally comfortable, with keys that light up automatically in low light. The mouse pad is a large glass surface that responds to multiple finger-touches, like the iPhone, making navigating documents easier, for example.

There are other enjoyable details of the 17” MacBook Pro, like the magnetic connection for the power cable so if you trip it detaches, and even if you fall, the computer won’t be dragged with you. Programs work speedily, and you can multitask to your heart’s content without noticeable slowdown.

Apple produce some wonderful technologies but they do come at a price, then again you pay for quality don’t you!!

So, how can you make business cards stand out and become the important marketing tool that they are?

1. Use full color printing. Full color printing business card printing  was expensive before but not anymore. Gemini press offers full color business card printing that gives high quality prints.

2. Have a tagline. This is a one-sentence benefit statement. Just pretend that you are writing an ad for a newspaper or a billboard. Since there is only a limited space to write your tag on, think of something that can describe best what you want to say. This will likely catch the attention of the ones reading your cards.

3. Put a picture on your business cards. Studies have shown that people have the tendency to keep business cards with a photo on it. It could be a picture of you or your products, even better if it’s a combination of them both. Putting on a picture is highly recommended because they are attention grabbing.

4. Do not use business card templates. There are many websites offering already-made business card designs that are called templates. The downside to using them is that many people may have used them already. Thus, using them on yours will make your business cards appear just like everyone else’s and will not stand out.

5. Let a professional do the designs. It can take a lot of time to design a business card yourself. And chances are, you may not be happy at the results. Leave the design of your business card to us and let us do the design. You do your part in selling your products and services.

Try to follow these business card tips and see the improvement results it will give you. Sometimes trying out different styles and techniques can bring positive results. As well as full colour business cards, Gemini Press can also produce foil blocked business cards, embossed business cards or even business cards with Spot UV to help you stand out from the crowd. You can see some examples of our business card printing on the Gemini Press site here.

One industry in particular that has been investing big in environmentally friendly techniques is the printing industry; where many companies are modifying their printing processes in order to work under the “Green Printing” label.

Green Printing is an environmentally friendly printing process that uses natural inks, recycled papers and energy conservation.

Like in many industries, there are lots of companies working or marketing their “green services” saying how environmentally friendly they are, but only those companies with certifications from national and international agencies are allowed to market such labels.

Accreditations from The Programme for Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes (PEFC), the Forest Stewardship Council and The Sustainable Forestry Initiative help to ensure the printing process is environmentally friendly.

One of the most renowned accreditations for the printing industry is the ISO 14001 environmental management standards. This accreditation is an international specification, aimed to establish an organized approach to systematically reduce the impact of the environmental aspects which an organization can control.

But there is more the printing and publishing industries can do to endorse their Green printing services; they can take part on campaigns like the Woodland Trust and become members of the Ride2Work Scheme, these are campaigns based in the UK.

The Woodland Trust is the UK’s leading woodland conservation charity which has an ambitious children’s tree planting project launched in the UK, with plans to help plant 12 million trees over the next five years.

While the Ride2Work is a government initiative to help reduce company’s carbon footprint, also known as the Green Transport Plan, it also aimed to make cycling more attractive and more accessible by taking advantage of some unique tax incentives.

The new Mac book pro and Mac book have been redesigned using an innovative laptop body, machined out of a single block of aluminium, this new “unibody construction” process makes for a more solid laptop. The chassis is one piece, made stronger by its lack of connecting corners—and less prone to manufacturing flaws, according to Apple.

This is an application of monocoque designs, which was used in cars as early as the late 30’s in fighter plane construction (the Spitfire is an example of monocoque construction).

The other main difference is the inclusion of a second discrete graphics card in the Mac Book Pro.

The Mac Book features a GeForce 9400M integrated graphics card that apple claims is 5X faster than similar offerings from Intel. The Macbook Pro features that same integrated graphics card, but then adds an additional 256MB or 512MB GeForce 9600M GT for users who need more graphical grunt, so very useful for photographers who want to do heavy Photoshop work on the road.

However, not all Mac users are happy with the dropping of FireWire support from all but the Mac book pro. People doing video editing and audio production are particularly unhappy about this, as both of these applications need the performance that fire wire offers over USB2.0