This month, we re-developed the Graphic Arts Magazine website to provide you with more tools to help you succeed in the printing and graphic arts industry. The printed edition of the magazine isn’t going anywhere, but to supplement your print subscription there are many new features and content that are only available online. Here are a few of the benefits of subscribing to the online version of our magazine.
Breaking news updates
Graphic Arts Magazine is committed to providing daily print and graphic arts news updates. In addition to being able to visit the site directly, one of the most underused features of our site has been the live RSS feeds. Using RSS feeds enables live updates of the latest news to be pushed directly to your browser’s bookmarks, your email account, a dedicated news reader, a personalized portal, or almost anywhere. For more information on how to use this extremely flexible system, visit our website at graphicartsmag.com.
Search the entire Graphic Arts Magazine archives
Most of the article archives dating back to 2003 have been added to the updated site, with the rest of the archives to come. Like the printed edition, they are categorized by year and month. More useful has been the addition of our AJAX-enabled search. It works very similarly to Spotlight search on the Mac — it starts searching the archives as soon as you start typing, and results are shown without having to open another page.
Photo galleries
You may have seen Tony Curcio, Kristen Read, Brian Collins or myself taking photos at a recent industry event. We’ve had the chance to talk to many people at a lot of booths. After the event, we’re faced with the difficult process of deciding which photos will make it into the magazine. There are many photos and comments that we would have loved to add to the magazine, but due to space constraints are unable to fit into the printed magazine. On the site, we’re able to provide a much more detailed look. Have a look yourself; you might even find a shot or two of yourself!
Digital edition
In the transition from a printed magazine to reading an article on a website, there are certain things that are lost: the look and feel of printed pages, the typography, the layout and the linear flow from article to article. We’re now offering a digital edition of the magazine that helps capture some of those elements. Read the articles as they were originally intended and, if you’d prefer, download a PDF of the entire issue.
Video content
One of the most informative and unique features of our new site is the addition of video content. At Print 09, Kristen Read was given the opportunity to interview people from Fujifilm, KBA, Kodak, HP, Hans-Grohni, Agfa, Island Clean Air, Avanti and others. From Tony Karg discussing what products FujiFilm brought to Print 09 to what TV’s Mythbusters think of the printing industry, we’re providing fresh, industry relevant content, with much more to come.
Be a part of the graphic arts community
My favourite feature of publishing on the Web is the ability to open the communication channel in both directions. The first channel we’ve opened is allowing commenting on articles and other media. Voice your opinion on the latest technologies, share insight or ask questions directly to the authors and the rest of the industry. With social media, we’re expanding our presence on Twitter at twitter.com/graphicarts and YouTube at youtube.com/graphicartsmag.
In future articles, we will tell you how you can use social media to help you increase your presence on the Web and how that will help your business.
We’re very excited to have been able to rebuild our site from the ground up. The framework is in place, and we will be adding more helpful features for you to make the most out of our site. Visit us at graphicartsmag.com, and if you have any questions or comments please contact me at george@graphicartsmag.com.
