We all know what most say is the worlds oldest profession, but I start to wonder if we are not part of what amounts to mankind’s oldest trade – the art of graphic representation!

We read in an interesting New Scientist article titled, “Oldest ‘writing’ found on 60,000-year-old eggshells,” this sniplet:

“COULD these lines etched into 60,000-year-old ostrich eggshells (see photo) be the earliest signs of humans using graphic art to communicate?”
Source: New Scientist

Looks like they tried to use a grid layout to help their typography, but surely not with Adobe InDesign CS4 or similar. Also, being Friday and all, could not resist inserting this cartoon image of a “graphic novel” by a caveman as well:

Source: http://media.photobucket.com/image/graphic%20arts,%20caveman/BECPL/caveman-1.jpg

A bit below on this entry is what I just posted in our Group within the Linkedin.com professional networking site. If you are a free participant of Linkedin, please become a member of our open graphic arts group today. First though, it may be good for those not 100% familiar with this site, to see why it is so important.

Here is a practical article about “why” Linkedin, which also highlights Moo.com a print media company and the CEO, Richard Moross:

“Moo.com is a printing and graphics company. Its CEO has a LinkedIn professional profile that lists his professional affiliations, which demonstrate his expertise in printing and graphics. There’s also an “I Love Moo.com” profile at LinkedIn (accessible to LinkedIn account holders) for customers of Moo.com.”
Source & full Article: Use LinkedIn To Promote Your Online Store

If you do not have a profile on Linkedin.com yet, I highly recommend you join Linkedin today (check this out too). Righty-o, onto how you can join up with Markzware there and connect with us personally as well:

LinkedIn Groups

Markzware User Group for Graphic Design, Publishing and Print

Subject: Announcement from Markzware User Group for Graphic Design, Publishing and Print  Read more... (421 words, 2 images, estimated 1:41 mins reading time)

Product Branding. Something many of you have to tackle, either daily or at least occasionally in your creative life. That is just one reason why I found this so interesting. The headline read on this main stream article about a long obscure, virtually erased from history genius:

Long-Dead Inventor Nikola Tesla Is Electrifying Hip Techies

His Name Is Branding Magic;

Source: Wall Street Journal (online)

Nikola Tesla is an extremely interesting figure to read up on. Patrick Marchese, CEO of Markzware turned many on to him years ago. The number of inventions (300 Tesla patents) he held is just incredible, if not the nature of them. The fact that many in design and marketing are using his name more and more in branding, is very interesting (Even entire companies, such as Tesla Motors and their electric car, who just filed with the SEC for an IPO or Initial Public Offering on the stock markets.). Perhaps it tells us more about the mind-set of humanity, than anything else.  Read more... (516 words, 2 images, estimated 2:04 mins reading time)

I saw this Kodak Social Media guide (Download provided by Kodak) at Print 09 and was pretty impressed.

Impressive was not only the quality of the print job but also the content to help printers and other graphic arts professionals get started with the all important process that goes with online networking. We even posted about it here and Tweeted it out too. Thus it was cool to see this post on Kodak’s blog about how they printed the useful booklet:

Printing of our Social Media Booklets

Paulette Brandes
Interactive Marketing Manager Design & Usability
Rochester, NY, USA

Click here for full article… … …

In a recent post, we looked at how outsourcing is effecting North America and Europe’s print businesses. Today we look briefly at how many are able to outsource the designing and prepress preparation of print-ads, to India in this case.

Graphic Designing | Graphic Design Outsourcing | Pre Press Outsourcing

Print-ads have surely seen a decline, yet print is far from dead. Graphic design is more than just layout and that is why I am assuming “western” designers will not be out of jobs anytime soon, especially with the cultural and language barriers associated with true brand and content management. Layout design is not Pre-press. Couple that with an explosion of new media channels, with of course Internet leading the charge, but mobile and eReaders or tablet computers coming on strong as well and this is perhaps a brand of outsourcing that is not only based on price, yet perhaps also demand. Comments? Please give your feedback below! Would love to hear it.

We now have 108 educational and useful videos created and uploaded on the Markzware TV channel on YouTube. We have been active there for about a year-and-a-half and it has proven to be an excellent way to both demonstrate, as well as offer support for our preflighting and conversion software.

Here was our very first upload on how to preflight CS3 about Adobe InDesign CS3 Preflighting vs FlightCheck…


And here are some of  the various categories or groups of videos, which YouTube calls, “PlayLists” which you may find useful or perhaps want to share (Tip: Use the little “>” buttons to the left and right of each embedded playlist to browse the selection of videos available):

Product Demonstrations – Markzware

Testimonials (video) – Markzware

Markzware Technical Support Videos

Many more video playlist’s to watch, for all and any in graphic design, printing or publishing… Whether you are looking for Adobe file conversion, InDesign troubleshooting, Quark XTensions or a way to better output your color graphics. See: http://www.youtube.com/user/markzwareTV#play/playlists

By the way, here are some cool advanced YouTube tricks for embedding and sharing videos:
URL tips and tricks with YouTube.com

– YouTube recently added a new interface option for their users whom have a “YouTube channel page.” Markzware has activated this cool, modern interface and you can check it out here:
http://www.youtube.com/MarkzwareTV

Make sure you check out the “Playlists” as there we have numerous categories, with our videos categorized. They include the following, with the Markzware support and product demonstration (Plug-ins, XT’s, applications, services, etc.) videos being the most popular:

• Graphic Arts & More
• Markzware Technical Support Videos
• Product Demonstrations – Markzware
• Markzware Testimonials (video)
• Interviews by Markzware
• Adventures or other videos
• Animations by Markzware
• Promotions and Specials

They also have integrated even better the ability to reply to one of our videos or to just make a new upload, via your own built in web-cam! It works great and here I give an impromptu intro to the re-designed Markzware video site on YouTube:

What better way to make sure your book layout or color graphics are in order than through industry education! So grab some popcorn and enjoy your Friday at MarkzwareTV!

Testimonials (video)  -

Graphic artists, designers, publishers and printers giving their feedback and experience on the power and advantages of using Markzware’s software tools for the graphic arts industry. Video testimonials on Markzware’s Adobe Plug-ins, QuarkXPress XTensions and stand-alone Macintosh and Windows applications:

To view the rest of the non-video testimonials on Markzware’s FlightCheck, Q2ID, ID2Q, PUB2ID, MarkzTools or our service to fix bad Adobe InDesign files, see:

http://www.markzware.com/marketing/testimonials/

This is one of those serendipitous moments. Was watching this neat little video explaining the value and job duties of a prepress operator and was glad to hear them mention preflight as one of their tasks. Was even happier, when at 41 seconds, I spotted a FlightCheck Professional report in action!

Check out the full video below:

Twitter (Twitter.com) is more than just a communications tool, it is a way to bond with customers, potential users and friends in an open and constructive environment. Here we see @vinneyt, one of the more active designers on Twitter, corresponding with @CamberPress a book printer about us, @Markzware!

This was from a month or so ago now, but just found the screen shot and notes on what I wanted to blog about back then (Yes, my desktop on my MacBook Pro is an utter mess- working on that!).

Twitter is an awesome way to learn of news, both graphic arts and general, but also a sort of social media marketing platform. It is so popular, you even may be unlucky enough to see this “Twitter is over capacity” message (although I must say, have not for a while now):

Peace and have a whale of a weekend,

David