About AURAS Design

40 YEARS DEDICATED TO EDITORIAL IMPROVEMENT THROUGH DESIGN

AURAS Design is a small, multidisciplinary studio that loves editorial design.

Since its founding by Robert Sugar in 1981, the firm has designed more than 100 publications and created more than 160 identity and promotional campaigns for a variety of association, publishing and corporate clients. The studio philosophy is simple. Close collaboration with clients in an exciting and enjoyable working process will result in a superior product. The result—many of our clients have worked with us for years.

Our approach is distinctly editorial—we tell stories with style. If you want AURAS to take your copy and create a nice design to fit it, we can do that. But our real strength is working with your content by improving the copy and developing images to make a more effective and engaging piece.

We design and produce magazines, books, annual reports, conference promotions, websites and marketing collateral of every kind. We even published our own magazine for design and editorial professionals called FPO Magazine.

In 1998, AURAS purchased a former Masonic Lodge in the heart of downtown Silver Spring and renovated the building and created an inspiring, light-filled, state-of-the-art studio where the top-floor ceremonial hall had been. Please come and visit us.

AURAS specializes in editorial publication and marketing design.

Editorial Design. Not only have we designed more than 100 magazines, we’ve been responsible for the ongoing design and production of 34 publications and have produced marketing materials for more than 100 clients throughout our history. Our goal has always been to improve every project by marrying compelling messaging with design that adds impact and authority.

Complete Marketing Campaigns. We have created entire marketing creative for more than 40 trade shows, conferences and exhibitions. From the logo, theme and graphics through promotional cards, brochures, catalogs, show dress, booths and websites, we can (and prefer to) take responsibility for the entire show.

Decades of Experience. AURAS helped pioneer computer design, bringing craft skills honed working in prepress and typography. The advent of Macintosh computers and Postscript imaging brought professional power to the desktop and we were ready to take advantage of it.

Expert Production Environment. Like expert musicians who play their instruments with almost magical fluency, our skills using design and production programs allow us to maximize the creative possibilities of every project.

Ongoing Investments. We purchased our own imagesetter in 1990 and by 1996 we were producing entire issues of publications directly to film. In fact, we helped a number of area printers enter the digital age. We bought high-end scanners and integrated our own digital images into documents. We built a photo studio for creating original art. We learned how to make custom typefaces.

Always looking for new challenges. When direct-to-plate superseded in-house imagesetting we were perfectly positioned to create printer-ready PDF files. Website creation and video production projects were added to our repertoire as a new generation of platforms required new software and new skills. We have consistently applied our old-world skills using the latest technology.