StudioWorks II

Taylor Publishing, 2006

Challenge

Design yearbooks on the web

Taylor Publishing Company is one of the nation's largest yearbook publishers, printing hundreds of thousands of yearbooks annually.

The company wanted to bring its yearbook customers onto the web from a desktop-based publishing environment to reduce prepress costs and maintain its competitive edge. Taylor retained Carbon Five to build a Macromedia Flex-based interface and a robust server-side application that would integrate with its printing workflow.

Solution

Macromedia Flex web publishing

On the back end, we implemented a service-oriented application architecture with secure remote services shared by the Flex UI and desktop design software, and ERP and printing systems.

On the front end, Carbon Five designed and built a Flex application that provides the features that Taylor's desktop software customers are used to. Additionally, to take advantage of the online environment, we added digital photography management and support for group collaboration and project management.

Value

Happy high schoolers, lower costs

Taylor released its new publishing platform, StudioWorks 2, in fall 2006 to great praise from its client base as well as its sales force. Taylor is seeing reduced prepress costs and rapid adoption by high schools.