May MQU Cover

I just wanted to highlight the latest cover of Machine Quilting Unlimited. This fantastic image is actually a quilt created by Carol Ann Sinnreich! I love designing a cover around great artwork like this. I thought the whole issue came out exceptionally well, due to the excellent quilts and writing. For more information on this issue and MQU in general, see www.mqumag.com.

Windy Evening at Carry Beach

There is a beach on Lake Winnipesaukee just a half mile down the street from our house. Yesterday evening the wind was kicking up the white caps and the clouds were lit up by a beautiful sunset. Here are a couple photos to give you an idea of what it was like:

Newsletter Design

Last week, I attended an excellent sales and marketing seminar sponsored by the Wolfeboro Chamber. It emphasized, among other things, the importance of educating and keeping in touch with clients and potential clients. A great way to do this is through a regular newsletter, either in print or by e-mail. One of my clients who was at the seminar was so excited about this idea, that we met right after to discuss designing a printed newsletter for his business right away. After a few days, he had written up some great articles. I turned the project around in less than a day and the newsletter is being printed today. He was thrilled with the design which you can see here.

This project emphasizes that an effective newsletter can be written, designed and printed within a short time frame. Of course, to be effective, it will be important to maintain your newsletter schedule, be it monthly or quarterly. In order to assure this, you may want to write some articles ahead of schedule. And don't forget to send the newsletter to as many contacts as possible -- existing clients, prospective clients and targeted leads.

If you think that a newsletter could help your business, please contact JLM Graphics for more information.

Quilt Pattern Catalog - Part 2

As promised, here is a sample page from the finished quilt pattern catalog. The design is basic, but the challenge was to create an editable layout, so that new patterns could be inserted in alphabetical order. This was done by "anchoring" each pattern graphic to the pattern name below it. That way, when a new pattern is inserted, all the other patterns "flow" to the next box and retain their order. After the layout was complete, I created an alphabetical index of all the patterns in each section. I had a lot of fun putting this together. It was more technical that most of my projects and required me to use some software features that I don't normally use. To see the entire catalog, go to www.debrageissler.com/catalog_download.php.

With today's software, creating your own newsletter, catalog or other publication can be easy. But sometimes a different design or layout system can save you money on the printing or make future editing less time consuming. If you have a publication that you produce, and have a problem that needs solving, I would love to take a look.