It’s National Small Business week! While summer can be seen as a time to unwind, take vacation and spend more time with family, it’s also prime time for businesses to re-focus and refresh their company’s strategy and/or marketing plan. Here are 5 ways you can give your small business a little boost this summer.

March Madness is in full swing with tip-off just hours away for this year’s NCAA Basketball Tournament. So whether you are a tourney stats master, like to pick based on your favorite mascots or simply want to show support for your alma mater, show-off your picks with a Bracket Poster.

Twitter, and Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube etc. are no longer a new-borns. You’ve been talking about them the same way you talk about your 16-year-old nephew – you hold your palm to your knee and say, “I remember when you were this big.” Similarly, the same incentives that worked for your nephew when he was “yay tall” no longer work on the teenage version. It’s the same with social media.

It’s been an exciting couple of weeks in the MagCloud offices. Our friends at SmallBiz Technology gave us a great shout out on their blog! In 7 Tech Tools to Help You Organize Your Next Successful Event, Ramon Ray names HP MagCloud as an “awesome service for printing your event program.” Being featured is great kudos in itself, but we’re mostly thrilled that we are considered a go-to, reliable service for printing your event materials.

While portfolios and business brochures are relatively common publication types on MagCloud these days, there are a number of other unique use cases we see where publishers take advantage of MagCloud’s high quality print and digital distribution to serve their business needs. Today we’d like to share a few of these with you, and hopefully spark your creativity for your own MagCloud publication.

Typography is the cornerstone of graphic design. It’s what brings character to your magazine, catalog, brochure or zine. It should never be overlooked or left to the end of your project. Typography should be considered during initial design phases and should be allowed to impact your layout and image choices. Why is it so important? Because the typography you choose sets the tone for your readers. It helps you tell your story in a way that an image (or even your copy) can’t.

As a nonprofit executive, you have a lot on your mind. From creating more awareness about your efforts to preparing for your next big fundraising event, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the pressure to survive in today’s profit-centric business climate.

Here are a few suggestions to help you stay in-the-know with nonprofit business trends and help you get the most for your marketing and publishing budget.

For the past six weeks we’ve been offering a series of design tips and tricks to help MagCloud users create publications that will capture the attention and imagination of their readers.

From dealing with trim and bleeds, to color selection and typeface dos and don’ts, we’ve tried to offer up ideas on how to deal with the most challenging design elements.

How you tell your business story can be the difference between turning a lead into a new customer or just a lost opportunity.

So how do you create business collateral that stands out and gets your audience engaged?

MagCloud can help bring your professional projects to life in print and digital. Our service is a great way to showcase your work to customers, clients, colleagues, partners etc.