Seattle Publishing Journal
February 2009

Dear Seattle,

As the cold winds and snows of January leave us, we now look toward February, seeking eternal spring. Our journal begins with a community project and ends with a bit of humor. Our hope is that you find something insightful or helpful in between.

Cheers,
The SP Crew

IN THE NEWS

homelessUNION.org

This January, Seattle Publishing selected homelessUNION.org as our 2009 community project. SP will be providing Dr. Noh and his homelessUNION.org website with publishing services for both web and print journal projects. Some of Dr. Noh’s projects include: journal editing and assistance with website copy, developing an online blog, and a potential street guide.

Each year, SP selects a project from Seattle’s diverse communities that may benefit from our expertise. Last year’s project was WearYourHelmet.org, an online resource for helmet safety and locating events or organizations that provide free helmets to children and adults.

TIPS & TRICKS

The Five W’s of Content

In the current business cycle, existing workflows, staffing, and task processes are rapidly changing or disappearing. Now, more than ever, it is important to start thinking about content strategies and how content is going to impact your business. Content is everywhere in an organization - from inventory data, pricing, descriptions, images and digital art, to online customer insights, search engines and meta tags.

When we work with companies to develop content strategies, we look to our journalism roots - the Who, What, When, Where and Why.

Who is producing, modifying, managing and consuming?
What are the advantages, assets and strengths?
When to build, leverage and grow?
Where are the liabilities, costs and weaknesses?
Why is having content strategy important in today’s current business cycle?

By applying the Five W’s, our clients have discovered that costs were lowered and cumbersome processes were streamlined, thus avoiding work duplication and content errors while maintaining the flexibility to adapt according to changing business conditions.

FEATURED PROJECT

Wine Trails of Oregon

What features more than 200 wineries and is a 3-hour drive from Seattle? Oregon wine country. Author Steve Roberts selected Seattle Publishing to produce his second guide book, Wine Trails of Oregon, which captures the same spirit as his first highly successful guidebook, Wine Trails of Washington.

Throughout 2008, Steve traveled to various Oregon wineries to capture unique scenes and experiences from which to write about. With its original maps and colorful descriptions, this sequel will have you enjoying every moment of your next wine tasting adventure.

Wine Trails of Oregon will be available in May, just in time for the beginning of the tasting season. If you’re interested, you can reserve your copy at Wine Trails NW.

THE ART OF PUBLISHING

Helvetica

Created by the Swiss school of typography in the 1950s, Helvetica became synonymous with modern and progressive attitudes of the ’60s. Recently there has been a renewed interest, and once again this icon is gaining in popularity.

With its cheerful appearance and clean lines, both the corporate and design worlds embraced Helvetica as the nearly perfect typeface to be used for anything and everything. "When in doubt, use Helvetica" was a common rule.

In the early ’80s, Adobe selected the font for their PostScript page description language. In the late ’80s, the desktop publishing phenomenon was taking off. Both Apple’s Macintosh computer and applications like Aldus’s PageMaker incorporated Helvetica as one of their original fonts.

By the late ’80s, Helvetica faced competition from another font, Arial, which was increasingly used by designers. It seems that a battle to be the "chosen font" occurred and the victor was used on the majority of applications for both publishing and the internet. Unfortunately, Helvetica was cast to the wayside during the ’90s, except for core users of Apple or Adobe applications. If it wasn’t for this dedicated group, this font may have gone the way of other graphic icons.

Happily, Helvetica is being rediscovered as a user-friendly font that has multiple applications. Now it is seen on websites, in print publications, logos, and letterhead. Recently an independent filmmaker created a documentary about this influential font and its colorful story of becoming an icon.

DID YOU KNOW...

Printer Roots

As Seattle’s pioneering printers, James Lohman & Clarence Hanford founded their printing company in 1880, specializing in stationary and books. Lohman & Hanford were one of the first businesses to rebuild after the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, and erected one of the first steel framed buildings in the city.

Seattle Publishing has called the Lohman & Hanford building, located at 68 S Washington St., home since 2001. During late nights with tight deadlines, there have been sightings of James & Clarence, the printers’ past.

BicyclePaper’s Top Ten benefits from riding your bicycle

1. Nice Legs!
2. Mood Enhancer
3. Great Exercise
4. No Gas
5. Free of Traffic Jams
6. Carbon Neutral
7. Relaxing
8. Guilt Free Desserts
9. Free Parking
10. High Cool Factor

Sincerely,
Seattle Publishing, Inc
www.seattlepub.com

 

The Gutenberg Publishing System's® namesake, Johannes Gutenberg, defined modern publishing when he blended 1400’s ink, type and mechanical technology to invent the moveable type press. With the same drive towards efficiency, Seattle Publishing’s database-driven system helps organizations manage their information and streamline the production process for print- and web-based publications.

Seattle Publishing, Inc. is a 36-year old company that blends current technology with time-tested publishing techniques. The company is a recognized leader in database-driven publishing and is constantly working to be the standard by which all competitors are compared.

Press Contact

Amber Zapffel
Seattle Publishing
206-903-1333
amber@seattlepub.com