Researching the latest trends in print and graphic design is the first step in ensuring you're staying on top of client's changing needs. Keeping your finger on the pulse of what's popular enables you to anticipate how customer’s asks are going to change and how you can begin to make changes for the year ahead. With this in mind, here are the top five design trends you need to know.

For businesses looking to enhance the personalization and targeting behind printed marketing content, variable data printing offers new, efficient, and high-value benefits that boost both commercial printers and their customers.

Technological advancements have been transforming and changing the way most organizations do business. It is no secret that the print industry in the US is no exception, as many forward-thinking companies have long been finding new ways to make their business more profitable. It is evident that workflow automation is still one of the hottest and most important topics among almost all printing establishments. While manufacturers and producers continue to introduce new and innovative products on the market, commercial printers are gradually moving into using automation in varying degrees.

With each technology replacement we purchase, we’re always looking for new and exciting ways to upgrade. When contracts are up on our mobile phones, we look at things like reception, memory, speed, and camera quality. When you put the newest phones next to each other, however, there’s not a lot that sets them apart. Until there’s a real game changer in the bunch—remember when the first smartphones came to market? The first iPhone? The first Android?—there isn’t much to get excited about. When looking for a new multi-function printer (MFP), there are several upgrades to consider as well, depending on essential work demands and business goals, but there hasn’t been an option like the Canon imagePRESS Lite C165 before.

Commercial print services face competition coming from every direction. It’s not just rival print businesses that need to be accounted for: Digital marketing alternatives present their own threat to any commercial print business, especially when defining commercial print profitability.

If you own a color printer, you’ve likely had to replace one of four ink cartridges used in your device. Cyan, magenta, yellow, and black have long been the standard color model used to produce high-quality prints of any kind. Whether you’re printing on ink-jet or laser printers, these four colors are used together to reproduce the entire color spectrum on the page.

It’s coming up on cold and flu season, and many of us are lining up to get preventive maintenance: a flu shot. Preventive maintenance is how most things are maintained and serviced—from human bodies to household appliances. In anticipation of mechanical parts breaking or needing repairs, we schedule service. Oil changes, annual HVAC assessments, and annual wellness exams are all examples of preventative maintenance. We hope that periodically checking the status of a piece of equipment will alert us to upcoming failure, reducing the amount of equipment downtime and the cost of repairs.