A New Chapter Is Written In the History of Plastics Technology

Last month, in an editorial accompanied by a picture of me when most of my hair was dark, I clued you in to changes that were in the works at Plastics Technology. I wrote about our upcoming redesign, and how we had embarked on this endeavor in an effort to make the print publication—and, ultimately, our website, all of our electronic products, and our social media presence—more modern, visually appealing, and easier to navigate from section to section so that you can more readily use the content to do your job better.

While I’m hardly an impartial judge on the matter, we think the content in our publication is compelling. We offer articles on best practices, tips and techniques, troubleshooting, etc., authored not only by our experienced editorial team, but from some of the most well-known and respected experts in the fields of materials, injection molding, extrusion, blow molding, tooling, and more. It stands to reason, then, that the magazine should be designed to be equally compelling, with clear, crisp images and illustrations that bring the pages of the publication to life.

Rick Kline Jr., publisher of Plastics Technology, expressed his thoughts on the matter. “Just as we seek to report the changes and designs that are driving plastics processing,” he writes, “we are also intent in challenging ourselves as media producers to adapt and evolve our product in ways that best serve the industry.”

What you are holding in front of you is the fruits of that effort, made possible by the tenacity and extraordinary creativity of the design team at Gardner Business Media, the family-owned, Cincinnati-based parent company of Plastics Technology. The first thing you’ve noticed is the cover, with a new logo that more closely links our print magazine with our website, a “glam shot” of this month’s cover story—an On-Site article on Winzeler Gear—and quick summaries and page references to other feature stories of interest in the issue.

One thing we have done throughout the publication is to more closely connect our print publication with our website. From the yearly studies Gardner has done across the subscribers of all of its manufacturing magazines, two points resonate: You still rely primarily on trade magazines like ours as your primary source for information on best practices, how-to advice, new products, etc.; and you regularly avail yourself of the web and other electronic products as part of the information-gathering process. As such, you’ll see ‘Learn More’ boxes at the end of most articles, pointing you to related articles that appear on our website: PTonline.com. We’ve even created short urls that permit you to access these articles with relatively few keystrokes.

As Rick also said, we’ve done all this “to make it easier for you to find the information you need to continue leading the changes and designs that are defining an active, evolving North American plastics processing market.”

Let me know what you think by emailing me at jcallari@ptonline.com.