Standard Register is a premier document services provider that manages critical documents companies’ need to thrive in today’s competitive climate. They offer secure prescriptions, technology solutions, professional services and print supply chain services. Standard Register signed a three-year agreement with the St. Louis-based Amerinet, a leading group purchasing organization.

Amerinet partners with health care providers to reduce costs and improve quality. With this agreement, Standard Register is one of only two suppliers addressing Amerinet members’ document management needs. This agreement extends through August 31, 2011 and offers Amerinet members savings on a wide range of document and print management products, services and technology that includes commercial printing, custom and standard forms, label products, patient identification bands, and on-demand digital printing services.

Amerinet members will have the option of employing Standard Register’s powerful SMARTworks technology platform to procure, distribute, manage and track document spending and usage. Through Standard Register’s broad portfolio of document management solutions and services, they can help Amerinet members exert greater control over document costs.

Monotype Imaging is a leading global provider of text imaging solutions. They have recently added the eight-font Tanseek Arabic typeface family as an exclusive selection available from the Monotype library. Each font also features the Latin alphabet and combines Arabic and Latin designs into a single typeface solution.

Monotype Imaging believes that Tanseek is the first “system” of its kind designed purposely to combine “serif” and “sans serif” faces to achieve a balanced, visual relationship between the Latin and Arabic alphabets. They claim that the design answer to the challenge of how to succeed typographically when using both Arabic and Latin fonts. The problem lies in the extreme differences between the two alphabets and also that Arabic and Latin fonts have not been traditionally designed to work together.

Tanseek brings harmony between Arabic and Latin-based texts across serif and sans serif styles and a variety of weights to provide a typographic palette for graphic designers. The typeface was designed toward balancing character shape, stroke, width and text color between the two alphabets. The Arabic design provides calligraphic elegance and the Latin counterparts lend aesthetic compatibility and legibility. Tanseek fonts are being used in various industries and world markets, including television channels in Saudi Arabia.

With the rise of the Internet, some predicted that it would become the nemesis of the print industry. However, the Internet has not destroyed print but rather given us a new language – print documents are now hard copies. In the United States, in the first six months of 2008, no less than 291 new printed magazine titles were launched. This figure is down on the year before the decline because of the general economic downturn and not the impact of the Internet.

The new generation of children may not read printed material as often but studies show that they do read online every day. They also use the Internet to choose which printed material to read. Smart publishers are taking advantage of this. For example, popular British film magazine Empire capitalized on the hype surrounding the latest Batman film The Dark Knight with its July edition featuring two different covers billed as Collectors’ Editions.

Empire has employed this strategy before with multiple Lord of the Rings and Star Wars covers. Marketing strategies based on the notion of exclusivity are increasingly popular. Custom printing in the United States has rise 20% in the first five months of 2008. Specialist magazines in aviation, aerospace, military and agriculture sectors are reporting between 6 and 7% increases in revenue.

Digital People is a digital printing solutions provider in the United Kingdom that has installed a second HP Indigo press 3050 at Henry Ling Limited, further increasing the market-leading print service provider’s digital printing capacity. The HP Indigo presses are used to produce journals and books for both short-run jobs and trial printing.

Henry Ling is traditionally a litho printer that made the decision to move into digital printing seven years ago. The company purchased its first HP Indigo press 3050 from Digital People in October 2007 and were thoroughly impressed with the efficient installation process and high level of service. Since the installation of the second press, the company’s print volume has quadrupled, attracting new customers to Henry Ling and adding to the satisfaction of the company’s existence customer base.

Henry Ling uses its digital presses to print books of approximately 64-200 pages with a run length of anything between 50-500 copies. A key benefit of digital printing is versatility in run lengths and allows Henry Ling to meets its customers’ print requirements cost-effectively and quickly. The unique HP Electrolink technology also ensures print quality is not compromised when printing digitally. The HP Indigo press 3050 is compatible with a vast range of file types.

Studio on Fire is a 21^st-century design studio located on the fringes of northeast Minneapolis in an industrial sector re-branded an arts community. The company deals in design work, letterpress printing, and their letterpress product line. The three areas support each other with it’s design specifically for letterpress printing and retrofitting the letterpress process back into the design of something so that the mode of production becomes the design.

The driving emphasis of printing has been toward faster, cheaper and slicker production processes. With the advent of offset and digital printing, it’s a trend that nearly relegated letterpress to the trash heap of extinct technology. Studio on Fire was established in 1998 and was steeped in the bygone printer’s craft but also with all of the advantage afforded by very fast digital efficiency.

The company’s hybrid process replaces traditional movable type and engravings with digital files. Text and image are copied to something akin to a film negative which is then placed atop a sheet of polymer. Both are vacuum-sealed and then exposed to ultraviolet light and the polymer hardens. During the wash cycle, only the non-hardened areas are washed away, leaving a relief plate. This plate is used in printing.