LIVE! Magazine Named 'Best in Category' at PIA Mid-America Graphex Competition

May 12, 2008
By Joe Hyde
Publisher

The Printing & Imaging Association of MidAmerica has announced that LIVE! Magazine is an award winner in the Association 19th Annual Graphic Excellence Awards Competition. The announcement was made April 24th at the Association’s 2008 Graphic Excellence Awards Gala, held at the Belo Mansion in Dallas, with nearly 400 industry professionals in attendance. This year’s competition attracted nearly 800 entries from many of the industry’s top commercial printers in Kansas, Oklahoma, Western Missouri, and Texas.

LIVE! Magazine was recognized as “Best Tabloid” in the under 17” category. It was one of very few web press products to receive recognition. The award was given based upon the graphic design and layout as well as the printing quality.

The Dallas-based press, Dallas Offset that prints LIVE! Magazine, also won an additional Best of Category Award for it’s printing of the Sprouts Farmers Market advertising inserts; one Award of Excellence; and two Awards of Merit. A panel of four independent judges with extensive experience in printing and print production judged each entry based on technical difficulty as well as the entrant’s attention to detail.

Dallas Offset CEO Steve Kubalik says the award would not be possible without the teamwork between Aaggregate Media (the publishers of LIVE!) and his team. Ted Taylor, Dallas Offset’s account manager for the LIVE! account says the magazine is a challenging monthly project. “They use a lot of four color black and sometimes challenge our margins,” he says. It took several issues to get the process down pat, Aaggregate Media’s publisher Joe Hyde says. “I remember the October 2006 issue. We had to redo the entire magazine layout twice to perfect the way the layout works on the press,” he says. Aaggregate and Dallas Offset created a workflow process that uses calibrated monitors that closely resemble the press output to brighten the design. Dallas Offset uses ultraviolet inks and computerized pdf-to-plate technology that produces a near sheet-fed quality product on a web press. “It is a pleasure to have this kind of close relationship with a client that allows us to meet the needs of not only our customer, but their customers as well,” Kubalik says.

LIVE! Magazine is a regional general interest publication that is direct-mailed to households and businesses in nine counties in West Texas. It has two editions, Southwest Texas LIVE! and San Angelo LIVE!.

PIA-MidAmerica (Printing & Imaging Association of MidAmerica) is a regional graphic arts trade association serving a diverse group of firms in Kansas, Western Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas. The Association provides a variety of corporate and employee benefits to nearly 800 companies and their 20,000+ employees. PIA-MidAmerica is a regional affiliate of the Printing Industries of America and the Graphic Arts Technical Foundation, the world’s largest graphic arts trade association.