design

Maximize the Impact of Your Member Communications

Patty1 Comment

Now that we’ve shared some of our best MagCloud examples of member communications, it’s time to talk content. What information is vital to include and what is best to leave out? Our take, like in most printed materials, is that less is more.

For many independent organizations, fundraising is typically a part of your member communications. Because of this, if not for other reasons, you must ensure that your materials are concise and compelling to make sure you’re reaching as many members as possible with your message.

Here are a few more tips to consider when composing your next member communication:

Spotlight Individual Members – Profiling a particularly active member can bolster involvement from the rest of the members who will strive to earn the honor as well, and it may drive the spotlighted guest to share the communication with his or her broader online network thus spreading the reach of your group.

Promote Your Social Media Channels – Many alumnae organizations have LinkedIn Groups and local community groups often have Facebook Pages. Whatever your channel, be sure you’re using your printed materials to promote your online social media channels. It’s a fast way to spread your message and it’s easy to communicate last-minute details about upcoming events.

Limit the Real Estate– All members are aware of the need for fundraising so when creating your materials, try to balance your fundraising call to actions with information that will inspire and inform members about your cause, club or organization. Each group will have a different setup, but no matter how many pages your publication is try to balance fundraising efforts with important news and updates.

Be Mindful of the White Space – We’ve spoken a lot about this subject in previous blog posts, and our advice remains the same. Make your images eye-catching and high quality (hire a professional photographer, if possible), but be sure you leave room on each page to avoid overcrowding.

Share your best practices for member communications in the comments below!

Member Communication Made Easy (Well, Easier…)

Lauren3 Comments

Whether you have a non-profit, church group, student association, small business, or sports team, getting your message out to your members, supporters, and investors can be a large task. Staying on schedule and under budget can be tough, and creating a print newsletter that looks good is only a fraction of the challenge. Then you have to worry about mailing lists, postage and distribution… and you have to do this annually? Quarterly? Monthly?! Yikes. My head hurts just thinking about it…

Well, now you can worry less, because you have MagCloud–and we’re working to make it easier for you. With Ship to Group functionality we can take on the heavy-lifting of drop-shipping to your mailing list and you won’t have to deal with pesky paper-cuts or trips to the post office. Digital distribution gives you the option to share a PDF with your users who prefer to stay up-to-date with their iPad or other digital device. And you can get it all done without having to leave your desk or get out of your PJs (no judgement here).

So since it’s the start of a new year, what better way to turn over a new leaf with your organization, than to turn a glossy page? Your publication can look professional and still be affordable if you publish through MagCloud and we’re going to help you get started right now.

To make the process easier, we created a classic newsletter template designed for printing as a 4-page MagCloud publication (which comes to just 60¢/copy if you order 20 or more copies). It’s easy to edit and available in three software formats. Check out the original and a variation of the template on the left, and then get started creating your own in Adobe InDesign (CS3 or newer), Microsoft Word or Apple Pages. *Please note, you may have to “right-click” or “ctrl+click” to start the download.

Starting with a template is a great trick for speeding up the design process (don’t tell anyone I told you, but a lot of professional designers do it themselves) and many well-designed templates have style sheets built in that make it easy to change fonts and styles with just a few clicks of the mouse. So with a few simple typeface changes, tweaks to color, and some new imagery, you can easily transform this basic template into a newsletter that fits your organization’s image. We used Neutra typefaces and swapped in orange for our example, but how you customize it is up to you.

Want to try a different design?
Depending on your software of choice, you can also find great resources built into some applications or as free downloads in their online resources.

Apple Pages has built-in templates that can be great starting points, just be sure to check your margins and settings because these layouts may need a bit of adjusting so that they are properly centered on the page after printing/trimming. For more detailed help with this task check out the “Add guides to pages and adjust layout for trim” section of last year’s blog post.

Microsoft also has free templates available for Word and Publisher online at office.microsoft.com.

If you’re willing to splurge and buy a template, from an online source like stocklayouts.com, be aware that most of these templates are not designed to MagCloud specs and will need to be adjusted to 8.5″ x 11″ pages in order to output a properly-sized, MagCloud-ready PDF. So before you spend the money, be sure you select a file format for software you are comfortable with, and that you are prepared to make the necessary changes to set the file up to match our PDF specifications.

More Resources
Still needing more inspiration? Check out some of our past blog posts for newsletter content and design tips, or great sample publications. And as always you can find all of MagCloud’s design Tips and Tricks and all of our free templates in our Design Resources section of the blog.

Have you found other great templates or resources to use when creating your MagCloud publications? Then please share them below in the comments section.

Design Tips to Help You Get Your Message Out

Meghan Cordella2 Comments

MagCloud offers a lot of options to help you communicate with members of your organization. Not only can you offer members the choice of a print or digital version through the MagCloud website, but you can also use our Ship to Group feature to mail a print copy to each one of them or use our Guest Pass feature to allow members-only access to unlisted publications via email.

Whether your group is focused on a shared interest or a shared alma mater, keeping members informed is an important part of maintaining any membership organization. At MagCloud we’ve seen membership communications take many forms, including newsletters, annual reports, member directories, and even calendars.

While the content of member communications varies greatly depending on the type of organization and the form of publication being created, here are a couple of design tips that are always good to keep in mind:

1. Keep your message clear. This doesn’t just pertain to what you are writing, but also to how you present your message on the page. Make sure that the information that is most important to your members is placed front and center, and anything additional is cleanly laid out in an organized and easy to follow fashion. Doing so will allow members to easily navigate through the publication and better ensure that they receive the messages you are hoping to deliver. This is particularly important when creating a member directory, which by nature contains a large amount of content. You don’t want to hinder the delivery of this content by having a disorderly layout that is difficult to find your way through.

Moorestown Rowing The Moorestown Rowing Club’s annual publication offers a great example of a large amount of content that has been laid out in an orderly fashion. Using bold titles and a consistent two-spread layout they are able to present their team rosters in a way that is easy to navigate and understand.

2. Use colors, fonts and imagery that are familiar. Although you may not think of it this way, your organization is a brand, and it’s important to take advantage of brand recognition in the communications you send to your members. The easiest way to do this is through the colors, fonts and imagery you use, matching those in your publication with ones that are used elsewhere on your group’s website or blog. By maintaining a consistent look and feel, you’ll help ensure that members make the association with your organization instantly when the printed piece lands on their doorstep.

American Glass GuildThe American Glass Guild does a great job of establishing a brand with their MagCloud-published newsletter. They not only keep a consistent look and feel with each issue but also using colors, fonts and imagery in their publications that is similar to those found on their website.

3. Balance your content. As with the other publication types we’ve discussed in recent weeks, it’s good to keep your readers engaged in your content, regardless of what the intent of the publication is. A big part of this is visual – when a reader encounters a page full of text, they may feel somewhat daunted by the amount of content they are being presented with. Rather than just giving your readers a lot of text to consume, balance the layout of your member communications with supporting images and related infographics. Even just breaking up a page of text with some white space can help make your message easier on the eyes. The easier your message is to consume, the more likely it is that your members will receive it.

Perception MagazineThe Canadian Council on Social Development’s Perception magazine is a great example of a membership publication with a balanced layout. Each of the longer text pieces in the magazine are accompanied by images, call-out quotes, and colored text boxes of related information. Not only does this makes the pages of the publication more visually appealing than they if they were just filled with solid blocks of text, but the added content also makes them more interesting to read.

Has your club or organization used MagCloud to communicate with its members? Tell us how in the comments below.

5 Catalog Design Essentials for Your Business

Lauren5 Comments

If you have a small business with a large product or service offering, odds are you have a catalog, and if you don’t, then you’ve probably wanted to create one, but didn’t know where to start. The process can be daunting–with so many elements to pull together and all sorts of design options to consider. So to help you get started, we’ve made a list of 5 tips to keep your efforts and design on track.

1. Know Your Audience

When choosing a design for your catalog, keep in mind your audience and appeal to their style, interests and demographics. Creating a sense of lifestyle will help you connect with customers and position your product as an object of their desire.

2. Reflect Your Brand

Keep your catalog style consistent with your brand style. You want to be sure they can make a connection between your website, logo, and service/products and your catalogs. Whatever you do, design with your brand in mind and be sure the voice and design of the catalog matches the voice and design of your brand. Once you have established a successful look-and-feel for your catalog, resist the temptation to change it. Repetition builds brand recognition, favorable reception and sales.

3. Use Quality Photography

All images should be of the highest quality possible. Make sure your pictures are clear and vivid, not pixilated. Poor quality images will send the message that the products are low quality. If you can’t afford to hire a professional photographer, read up on blogs and forums for great tricks for taking your own product photos. Also try to mix up the type of shot. Catalogs benefit from pacing and surprise – simple silhouetted images, closeups of details, wide angles, full-bleed photographs and lifestyle shots sustain viewer interest and keep them turning to the next page.

4. Space and Layout

The most important thing about a catalog is highlighting your product, so be sure you have ample white space for each item. Cramming text and images into a page, or using the exact same layout throughout the document will make it look stale and won’t encourage your customers to really pause and look over the whole spread. A consistent layout throughout the catalog enhances readability but can become boring, so be sure to break up the monotony of a predictable layout by including a unique page or two to highlight a favorite product or create an editorial opportunity for your customer to connect with the product.

5. Use fonts and color wisely

Be sure to use fonts that fit your brand’s style. If you have a children’s apparel brand, your typeface selections will be very different than if you have a luxury spa brand. Do not go overboard with typefaces, it’s probably best to limit your selection to just three. You can read more about this in our recent typography blog post.

Start Planning and Then Start Publishing

There aren’t any hard and fast rules for creating your catalog, just remember to keep it simple so that your product attracts more attention than your design. After all, the objective is to sell more, right?

A good starting point is to jott down words that come to mind when describing your brand: Is it whimsical? Sophisticated? Luxurious? Fun? These words will make the perfect litmus test as you assemble your catalog. Then every step along the way you can ask yourself, is this publication reflecting this image?

Now that you are ready to get started, take a look at some of the great examples of catalogs on MagCloud. We hope they will help inspire you. Already published a catalog with MagCloud? Share it below in the comments!





Attract an Audience to Your Event with Great Content

Patty2 Comments

Whether you are planning a large conference, an intimate meeting for VIP customers, a quarterly gathering for club members, or an annual fundraising event, content plays a pivotal role in attracting and pleasing attendees.

Compelling speakers are the most important factor in attracting attendees to your event.  Finding speakers who are relevant, experienced and have a unique story to tell will not only drive attendees to your event, but keep them talking about it well after the event is over. You should even consider soliciting potential attendee feedback in the process of selecting keynote speakers, panelists and meeting topics.  A great example of this is the South by Southwest Panel Picker, which allows their community to vote on proposals for various speakers and panel topics, thus engaging their audience in the actual content programming of the event.

Networking is more than a handshake. Besides great speakers the other reason people attend events is to network.  As an event organizer you can help your attendees get the most out of the event by making networking easier before, during and after your event.  Use the existing social networks to get attendees talking prior to an event—event Facebook Pages or Groups, Twitter Hashtags, LinkedIn Groups etc.  Consider hosting Birds-of-a-Feather sessions or lunches where attendees can gather to informally discuss topics of mutual interest.

Attention grabbing materials.  Print and digital materials you use to promote your event—brochures, flyers, newsletters; and inform attendees while at your event—programs, daily papers, agendas etc. are an important factor in audience engagement. Events like music festivals, sporting events and business conferences are complemented well by programs that can serve as both a guide to attendees as well as used for marketing material down the road. An event program is a great way to showcase the talent you’ve organized, share the purpose of your event, promote your sponsors and acknowledge those who deserve thanks.

Here are a few of our MagCloud favorites (from MagCloud publishers as well as others) to provide some inspiration:

    • Conference of Creative Entrepreneurs published the program for their August 2011 event in San Francisco. This program does a great job of posting the packed schedule along with speaker bios and ads for local businesses (It’s clear they put a priority on great design – a top MagCloud tip!)
    • 2010 Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta – it’s not just about a one-week event in October. This program delves into the history of the annual Balloon Fiesta and gives details on each balloon flying at the event – it’s sort of like the “speaker bios” of the balloon festival world.
    • 2010 Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open program has a clear focus on great photography especially the shots of the individual holes (pages 50-66) not to mention beautiful integrations with their sponsors. The ads are woven into the program and don’t feel forced or out of place.
    • SXSW 2012 Event Marketing brochure is chock full of impressive stats, engaging content and gorgeous design.
    • TED Fellows 2011 Booklet gives shout outs and thank yous up front along with a brief description of the program and of course a look at each TED Fellow and the work they are up to.
    • Guide to Davos dives into the topics at hand for the 2011 Davos Conference and gives the reader a feel for the tone and sheer importance of the event. Layout is unique and could work well for an event that requires articles in their program to communicate its story.

And if you are ready to get started on materials for your next event and need a little help check out our collection of free event program and brochure templates:

Have you taken a unique approach to selecting speakers, creating networking opportunities or created killer event materials? If so please feel free to share those ideas in the comments section and tell us what kind of feedback you received from event attendees and partners.

 

Easier Access to Publisher Tools

PattyLeave a comment

With our redesign of the MagCloud home page we’ve put the most important publisher tools just a few clicks away. Now when you sign-in to MagCloud you’ll immediately have access to a variety of publisher tools including  sales stats, publication drafts, promotion tools, recent orders and much more.

Your personalized home page will dynamically serve up content that is most important to you:

  • Sales Information: If you sell your publications via MagCloud, you’ll automatically see your pertinent sales stats: page views, recent sales, digital downloads, your followers and your sales earnings.
  • Publishing Tools: You’ll have easy access to your latest drafts, and one click access to promotion tools, your address book, a pricing calculator and your entire publication library.
  • Recent Purchase History: You can easily access recent order details and available digital downloads.
  • Recommendations: We’ll recommend other publications you might be interested in based on other publications and publishers you’ve shown interest in.
  • News Feature and Tips Updates: We are constantly adding new features, offering new templates and giving out design tips to make your publishing lives a little easier and you’ll be able to access the latest information directly from your home page.
So sign-in to MagCloud to check out our new home page design and let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Get With the Program

Lauren2 Comments

Planning for an event can sometimes be, well, eventful. There are always changing schedules to deal with, speakers canceling at the last minute, and 11th hour edits to the program. Making it to press in time (sometimes weeks before the event) with all of these adjustments can be nearly impossible. So, why not lighten your load and use MagCloud?

With fast print turn-around times (as fast as 3-business days for some orders) and great digital options, you could have your next event’s program done quickly, printed beautifully and even offer a digital option to attendees who would rather have their program on their mobile device.

Whether you are planning an internal training day for 10, a corporate meeting for 100 or a conference for 1,000+, MagCloud makes it easy to publish a program with just a few clicks of the mouse and have prints delivered straight to the event location. How easy is that?!

Need shipping that fits your budget? Use the MagCloud pricing calculator to figure out what level of shipping option works best for you.

To help you get started, we have 3 basic templates for Adobe InDesign (CS3 and later) Microsoft Word, and Apple iWork Pages. You can also find templates for sale online from many sites, but be cautious that many of them will require some tweaking to output for print through MagCloud. Please see our How to Guides for details on MagCloud-ready settings.

Ready to design on your own? Get inspired by other publishers’ event and sports programs and agendas on MagCloud:

  

 

It’s that time of year again…

Lauren18 Comments

Every year around this time, we see a bevy of calendars popping up on MagCloud. But surprisingly, they are not all what you would think… Sure, there are plenty of family calendars published, undoubtedly intended for distribution to cousins, aunts and grandma, but we think the more interesting use-case are the those being put together by professionals to promote their businesses. And what better way to stay top of mind with your clients, than to be pinned to their wall, where they will see you everyday?

Whether you’re an event planner wanting to showcase your aesthetic, a photographer promoting your work, a non-profit raising awareness or a small business trying to keep your team top of mind with your audience–calendars are a great way to keep your name in front of your client all year long.

Assembling a calendar can be time consuming, so this week we did the heavy lifting for you. Below you will find calendar templates for 3 of the most-frequently used software programs on MagCloud:

Adobe InDesign (CS3 and newer) (zipped version is HERE)

Apple’s iWork Pages

Microsoft Word

You can use these as a starting point for creating your own professional or personal calendar. We won’t spend a ton of time going into the technicalities of how to use these templates because we’ve covered that for Word and Pages last year.

BONUS: if you are using InDesign, there are 3 styles of calendar hidden within the master pages that you can easily apply by changing the master pages for each spread.

Get inspired by some of the great 2011 and 2012 calendars already on MagCloud:

        

Have you created or found a great calendar on MagCloud? Share the link below in the comments section!

Put MagCloud to Work: Publish a Business Brochure

Lauren1 Comment

A wise person once said ‘You never get a second chance to make a first impression’. In fact, it just takes a few seconds or a cursory glance for a person to make a judgment about us. Our subsequent actions, behavior and professionalism may change that perception slightly, but not to a great extent.

So it stands to reason that how you portray your business to prospective clients is almost as important as how you do business.

Whether you are a fashion designer, a multi-media training company, an industry consultant, a yoga studio, or a niche photographer, putting your brand out there in a professional manner is extremely important.

One could argue that a brochure is just as important as your business card. It is an important marketing and sales tool, one in which you can do a little bragging and shamelessly present your business in the most positive light. It is your opportunity to create a lasting impression, so be sure that it is a good one.

Whether you are a company with a staff of 2, 20 or 20,000, MagCloud is a great tool for affordably publishing and distributing your brochures in a professional format. Our full-color, full-bleed print options in both standard and digest trim sizes give you the choice to create a robust brochure of multiple pages, or something simple and portable, like a four-paged digest handout. Digital distribution options also make it easy to share your brochure digitally to a desktop, laptop, the iPad, or other mobile device.

MagCloud’s ship-to-group feature makes it easy to drop-ship seasonal information or annual brochures to your clients around the world. Or, if you are a small business, its on-demand functionality means that you can distribute individual copies as needed to interested clients, allowing you to maintain a professional appearance without exceeding a limited budget.

Once you have these great logistics and beautiful print quality, the only thing holding you back is content, and design. Here are a few tips for gathering the content you should include in your brochures, and how to effectively assemble it into a professional-looking publication.

Getting Started:

Who are you talking to?

The first thing you need to know is what you want your brochure to accomplish. That ties directly into the target audience and what the message of the brochure will be. Identify your target audience and speak directly to them. Never try to address everyone. Once you know who your audience is, it will be easier to target your messaging and articulate that your product or service is a solution to their needs.

What is your message?

Always include a meaningful headline. Your headline should clearly communicate your main point so that even if the reader reads nothing else, they will understand what you are about.

Tell the whole story in your writing. Be concise, but remember to write your body copy in plain English. Don’t use jargon or industry lingo, instead pretend you’re explaining your message to a friend.

It’s helpful to use succinct, pithy copy. Avoid long sentences. Keep your message to the point. Use subheadings liberally, as they break up long copy and help draw a reader through the text. Ideally, a reader should be able to get a good grasp of your message by reading only the headings and subheadings.

Designing Your Brochure: 

When all of your information is gathered and your writing is done, you can finally get down to the business of designing. You’ll want take into account the basic elements of good design – organization, consistent styling, balance, color, and so on.

Lay out your brochure cleanly and professionally. The design should draw the reader in and ease the process of reading. Remember that erring on the simple side will be easier for your consumer than an over-designed, distracting or hard-to-read brochure.

It’s great to use graphics to provide balance with text, but be sure they are relevant to your content. Use graphics that grab your reader’s attention and underline your message. Whether it’s a picture, logo, or stock image, just be sure it relates to your message and brand.

As with any design there are some things you’ll want to avoid. These include:

  • Avoid over-used typefaces, such as Arial and Helvetica. Read more in our recent blog post.
  • For content type, keep the point size under 12.
  • Don’t use more than three type faces in a brochure.
  • Generally don’t use more than one alignment.

If you feel lost…

Starting from scratch on a brochure can be challenging. Some great resources for design inspiration can come from other designs. Try searching the web for brochures in your industry and see how your design stacks up against the competition. You don’t want to copy someone else’s design, but it’s a great way to get inspired.

Also check out the stock templates available within most design and word-processing software. If you aren’t a super-savvy designer using InDesign or Quark, you’ll be amazed what you can do with Apple iWork Pages, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Publisher. For those who are confident in their skills with the software, but looking to get a more professional look, you can also investigate altering templates from Stocklayouts or Inkd, just be sure you are ready to tweak these designs as they are not all perfectly sized for output through MagCloud.

Have you published your company’s brochure through MagCloud, or found other great resources for inspiration and design? Please share them in the comments below.

Portfolios Made Simpler With Flickr

LaurenLeave a comment

Have you wanted to create a print portfolio for your photography, artwork or business but don’t have the design skills or the right software to get the job done?

Here at MagCloud we are always looking to make things easier for you, which is why we offer the option to create a print publication using a Flickr photoset. It’s easy to use, and in just a few minutes MagCloud will take a set of your photos on Flickr and lay them out in a simple one-image-per-page template to create a tidy portfolio. What’s great is that it works almost instantly and is very easy to use, so if you need to get a collection off to a potential client immediately, or have procrastinated and need to get something together quick–then this is the tool for you. Follow along with my example below, and give it a try for yourself.

Here’s how it works:

1. Upload your images to Flickr and organize them in a photoset.
Be sure to put the images in the order you wish for them to show in the portfolio. This means your first image will be your cover image, and then the rest will follow. Since each image will be assigned to a page, you will want to have a number that is an increment of 4 (that means 4, 8, 12, 16… etc). My set in this example has 36 images, so it will be 36 pages long.

2. Edit the titles of your photos. (optional)
If you wish to include captions for your photos, such as credit information, location or other details, be sure to edit the titles of your photoset while in Flickr. You’ll have the option to include these titles at the bottom of each page of your final printed portfolio, so you could also use this space to include your contact information or copyright details.

3. Start the creation process at MagCloud.com/publish.
Once you are ready to publish, select the import from Flickr option on the Create Publication page. This will launch the importer, where you can select a photoset from your Flickr account.

4. Select your options and create your file.
The Title and Subtitle you enter here will appear on the cover of your publication. This is also where you can select whether you want to include photo titles and page numbers.

5. Preview your file and set binding options.
Take a quick look at your publication to confirm your settings. You can scroll through every page to see how your portfolio will look. Happy with it? Then select your binding options and publish!

6. You’re done!
See, now wasn’t that easy? Though this example is that of a children’s sports photographer, the Flickr Import could be used to make portfolios for your jewelry design business, fine art, architecture, decorating, crafts, or graphic design work. How you use it, is up to you.

A few tips and things to consider BEFORE you start your import:

What Image will be on my cover?
For simplicity, this should be the first image in your photoset.

What order do I want my images in?
The order that your images are in within your photoset, is the order they will appear in your MagCloud portfolio.

Which images will be facing on spreads?
If the first image in your set is the cover, then images 2 and 3 will be facing pages. It’s a good idea to go through your set to be sure that you like the arrangement of these photos (are people facing off the pages, or leaning against the outside edge of a page?) if so, you may want to swap around the order of your image.

Do I want to include captions or credits?
Because the title appears at the bottom of the page using this Flickr feature, you can also use this space for copyright information, or to include your contact information. In the examples below you can see how we accomplished this. To be sure every other page has the right information, just be sure to alternate the information in the titles of your images.

Is there any non-photographic content that I want to include like my contact information/ company logo?
To do this you have to get a bit tricky and create an image of the content and save it to flickr. You can use this trick to load verbiage into alternating pages, or if you want to include your company logo and contact information and logo on the back cover, this is a great work-around to do that. Simply create the image in any application that allows you to save an image (Flickr will let you upload JPEGs, non-animated GIFs, PNGs or TIFFs) and add it to your set.

What’s the maximum image size printed with the Flickr upload?
If you want to make sure your photo takes up as much of the page as possible, size it at 1875 by 2625 pixels at a minimum of 300 dots per inch resolution.

Are my images high enough resolution for printing?
The largest image size using the flickr uploader is 2475 by 2475 pixels on the covers and 1875 by 2625 pixels for interior images. For more information about photo quality and printing check out our blog post about getting the most out of your photos.

Can I have more than one photo on a page using the “Upload from Flickr” feature?
The “Upload from Flickr” feature currently only uses one photo per page. If you are adventurous, one way around this is to create a single image file (jpg, gif, png or tiff) that contains multiple photos and upload it as part of your Flickr set. Make sure the single image file is 1875 by 2625 pixels at a minimum of 300 dots per inch resolution. When your MagCloud publication is created, this file will be placed on a single page just like your other photos, creating the impression of multiple images on a single page like this example.