A delightfully absurd take on everything from superheroes to office humor, twisted relationships, huggable animals, and more.
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An adroit mixture of everyday settings and extraordinary events.
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A compendium of strange-but-true recent events as reported in the legitimate press.
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The world of business and finance gets skewered, as Bottom Liners tackles subjects such as foreign takeovers, office policies, getting a raise, and the fast-paced world of Wall Street.
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A wry look at the absurdities of every day life.
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With a daily readership of more than 95 million, Dear Abby is the symbol of a caring heart for millions of people around the world.
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In today's complex world of family issues, learn from Dr. Dobson's lifetime of practical experience in dealing with family problems.
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Extraordinary Typography
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Reach Them Direct
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Computer on a Stick
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A Note of Thanks
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A Message From Printing Arts Press |
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Planting a Seed
A young woman decided she wanted to grow an apple tree in her back yard. She had never planted anything before, so she started researching all she could about growing an apple tree. She learned about site selection, training and pruning, adequate fertility, pest control, and other factors helpful for creating a healthy apple tree. Every time she went out in her yard, she pictured the tree already grown with rich, beautiful apples all over it. Because of her determination and ongoing nourishment, the seed she planted grew into a flourishing tree that she was very proud of.
Here's the way we see it: You can't plant apple seeds and expect oranges. However, with a little determination and effort, you may be amazed at what you can grow. We plant "seeds" in life more often than we realize, and sometimes these ideas flourish into great accomplishments. If you're looking for creative nourishment, give us a call. We'd be happy to help your seed grow.
Visit with us at the OSAE Annual Conference:
Where: University Center, Kent State Un., North Canton, Ohio
When: 7:00-10:00 pm, Wednesday, August 11
Jeff Green
614-499-5957
Jeff.Green@printingartspress.com
Bob Vogt
740-397-6106
Bob.Vogt@printingartspress.com
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Idea of the Week |
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Fine Tuning Typography
The fine line between ordinary and extraordinary design lies in the details. While great attention to detail is placed on layout, often overlooked in document creation is the text itself. In the days of yore, professional typographers would peer over the printing press to ensure that the typeset was truly a work of art. Typographers would, quite literally, make certain that the “i”s were dotted and the “t”s were crossed.
While Typographers in the print shop may have fallen to the wayside, typographers at digital foundries take special care to craft highly functional pieces of digital type that can truly sparkle in the right hands. However, unless you know where they have hidden their tools, your electronic documents may be missing their finery. In QuarkXpress 8, the ability to bring out the best of typography are just a few quick clicks away.
Working With Special Characters.
 What you see on your keyboard is just the start of what lays hidden within many fonts. Bullets, accented characters, monetary symbols, and much more lurk just beneath the surface. Some special characters even include multiple shapes for you to chose from to bring out the best in your document. These special characters can be found in the Glyphs pallet of the Windows Menu.
To add a special character, open up the Glyphs pallet in the Window menu, and then scroll to locate the character you would like to use. Double-click the glyph and it will be placed in your document. If you have a few glyphs you find yourself favoring, you may wish to save them in the Favorite Glyphs area at the bottom of the Glyph Pallet by dragging and dropping them into the open boxes.
Creating Fractions
 While you can easily create fractions using numbers and a slash, the results can lack the refinement that actual fractions lend to a document. For a more polished approach, you can utilize QuarkXpress' built in functionality to give your fractions the detail they so highly deserve.
To create your fraction, simply highlight your text, and chose Style > Type Style > Make Fraction. This will convert those unsightly displays of 1/ 2 and 1/ 4 into more elegant ½ and ¼. Even complex fractions can be expressed with a more refined appearance with just a few quick clicks of the mouse.
Applying Ligatures
Often times, certain combinations of letters can cause your type to look a bit more shabby then it could. Notoriously, “fl”s and “fi”s can become crowded with some typefaces. Ligatures are special glyphs that represent a character pair, and can help remove the awkwardness to those type combinations. Fonts can easily be substituted with ligatures automatically in QuarkXpress if you know where to look. Simply click on Enable Ligatures in the Character tab of the Measurements pallet.
Typography may no longer be the first thing you think of in document creation. But thanks to QuarkXpress 8, your documents can still have the look of "hands on" craftsmanship like that of the typesetters of old. With a little attention to detail and a little knowledge of QuarkXpress' powerful tools, you can bring back the fine art of typography to your documents.
See more great ideas like this!
Click here to visit the Printing Arts Press Ideas Collection.
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Marketing Tip |
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Tips to Increase Response Rate
Creative direct mail is a great way to break through the overload of electronic marketing. Direct mailings can range from postcards, self-mailing brochures, letters, lumpy mailers, etc. Here are a few tips on how to increase your response rate and be remembered:
- Create a series campaign to create front of mind awareness.
- Feature testimonials from happy customers, including a quote, review, or link to read more.
- Include a coupon or promotion with a timely expiration to entice recipients to move on your offer.
- Promote upcoming free events, white papers, or training sessions of interest.
- Celebrate special occasions by sending coupons or discount cards for anniversaries, birthdays, holidays, etc.
- Send a monthly newsletter featuring new products, helpful tips, and upcoming events and sales.
- Hold a monthly contest where recipients submit their mailing for a chance to win. Not only does this increase store traffic, but it can also help build your mailing list for future promotions.
- Throw an open house. Give customers a chance to meet new staff, learn more about new products, enjoy a snack, win give-away items, etc.
- Mail reminder postcards for upcoming appointments - time for a new haircut, time for your dog’s annual vaccinations, you’re due for an oil change, etc.
- Include a postage paid return envelope whenever a written response is requested.
- Increase excitement by including a scratch-off discount offer.
- Establish prestige and add appeal with foil stamping.
- Attract attention with die-cut promotional materials.
- Entice readers to open your envelope with teaser promotions that increase curiosity or urgency on the outside.
- Oversize your mailings to create impact. This includes oversized envelopes, postcards, packages, etc.
- Consider external lists from list brokers, trade associations, or retails that fit your desired customer profile to expand your direct mail audience.
For more ideas on how to increase your customer base with direct mail, stop by today. Creative printing solutions are our specialty!
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Tech Tips |
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Portable Apps
If you are currently using a flash drive simply as a backup or transfer device, you haven't truly unlocked the potential of the USB until you've installed some programs on it. Because portable applications allow users to run programs independently from a removable flash drive without the hassle of installing them, they are becoming a favorite for professionals in a variety of industries. If you aren't already using this feature, here are a few portable apps for Macs and PCs to check out:
- HTTP File Server is a very simple application to send/receive files over the internet, and is very handy when exchanging files that are over the maximum e-mail size limits.
- Foxit Reader is a small PDF reader that is much faster than Adobe Reader.
- OpenOffice Portable is a great alternative to Microsoft Office. It includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation creator, and database tool.
- Thunderbird Portable Edition is a popular e-mail client that allows you to bring your e-mails and address book with you.
- MemPad enables you to save all notes in a single file but arrange and manage them in a hierarchical tree-based manner.
- KeePass Password Safe Portable allows you to carry multiple login information and passwords on your USB drive accessible through one master password to protect them.
- Firefox Portable Edition enables you to bring your bookmarks with you.
- Google Chrome Portable enables you to run different tabs as separate processes which prevents different windows from interfering with each other.
- Notepad++ is one of the most popular replacements for Windows Notepad.
- Web Design Toy splits into two views where you can instantly preview the output when you type HTML code.
- GIMP Portable is the best alternative for Adobe PhotoShop, enabling you to easily edit images no matter where you are.
- Fotografix is a tiny application alternative to GIMP with features including clone, eye dropper, magic wand, etc.
- Inkscape Portable is an open source vector graphics editor, and is a great alternative for Adobe Illustrator.
- FileZilla Portable is the most popular open source FTP client and allows you to save and conveniently access your clients' server details and settings.
While portable applications are great, just remember if you plan to take a USB flash drive with portable apps to a client site for use on one of their machines, you should always check their IT security policy in case they have security restrictions in place.
Don't worry if the portable app program details sound like foreign language... we'd be happy to help you with both your technical and printing needs.
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