10-20 shortcuts student designers need to know about!

We’re often being asked how we manage to get through so much work and cope with tricky time-scales on our projects. Alongside having an experienced team we also have many processes and systems to help support us in efficient and consistent product in methodologies. No matter how experienced we are, we are constantly learning new [...]

BookMachine CAMPUS: Photo research tips for success: Making the most of media

BookMachine’s 2022 Autumn CAMPUS courses have been released and one of our Art Buyer’s, Lucy has become a BookMachine CAMPUS course tutor! BookMachine CAMPUS is BookMachine’s library of industry-specific visual courses for publishing professionals, who want to gather new, or brush up on their existing skills. The courses are less than an hour in length [...]

The first emc ‘wayzgoose’

This week saw our first ‘wayzgoose’, and we know what you’re thinking… “the first emc what? بلاك جاك ” Historically, a wayzgoose was an annual event held by the masters of printing houses to mark the end of summer and the start of the season of working by candlelight. Thankfully we no longer have to [...]

Meet Jo – one of our 2017 graduate designers [INTERVIEW]

Jo joined emc design back in August via our Graduate Design Scheme after successfully completing her BA in graphic design in 2016 and her MA in creative writing this year. We've finally found the time to post up this interview with her to find out how she's finding it all so far... You graduated from [...]

6 tips for adapting artwork

At emc design we are very familiar with adapting educational course materials for multiple markets. Often the International version will be adapted to suit different markets, territories and educational situations. As well as re-writing anything from 20-60% of the material the artwork and images are also adapted to suit these different versions and the newly written content. [...]

New project: GCSE Food Preparation & Nutrition

We're really pleased to finally showcase the brilliant new GCSE Food Preparation & Nutrition course from Illuminate Publishing. The project was design-led from the start and every page has stunning visuals to entice and help GCSE learners. We even heard this week that the first print run has already sold out! So a huge congratulations [...]

The benefits of in-house Creative Content – why picture researchers need designers

In our previous posts about using stock images in ELT materials, we discussed how to make the most of picture research, giving away some of our (not-so-secret) secrets. Here at emc, we’re lucky to have a dedicated, in-house Creative Content team who work closely with our designers to ensure that the research we do not [...]

How agile can we be? An editorial perspective – Part 2 of 3

In the first part of this mini-series we discussed the complexities of ELT publishing – focusing on publishers’ growing need to get courses to market quickly without losing quality. To do this, the supply chain for larger projects is often made up of smaller companies and individuals, all of whom are going to be working [...]

How agile can we be? Working effectively with small businesses – Part 1

As global publishers increasingly promote agile workflows both internally and externally, they rely more and more heavily on many individuals and smaller businesses to help get their massive, multi-million pound courses and products to market. These external suppliers (like emc) can provide any number of different services – from simple design of one component to [...]

How to add creative value without extra cost

We’re always drawing odd bits and pieces to embellish realia (real life examples in educational publishing). القمار This adds value to the page without our client needing to purchase images. It’s also part of our design service at emc! العاب تجلب المال We keep a pool of commonly used textures and even flags. This means [...]