When I got my first job as an manufacturing engineer, my boss immediately told me to get a subscription to Machine Design Magazine. “Awesome!” I thought to myself, followed by, “I wonder how much that’s gonna cost?”

Well, it turns out that Machine Design is a free magazine for engineers and designers. No kidding… there are hundreds of industrial trade magazines just like Machine Design that are all free.  How cool?

The best part is that every magazine focusses on a specific niche of interest. Magazines are largely ad supported, but the articles really are interesting and up to date with technology. Most of these magazines have finally moved online and not only offer a digital edition, but also have all their content searchable and readable for free online as well.

Some of my personal favorites

• Machine Design: Focusses on mechanical design.  Articles range from technical analysis and software for mechanical systems to physical design of new mechanical design components.  (subscribe to Machine Design)
• Medical Design: Great articles focussed on new techniques for medical design and manufacture as well as cutting edge medical devices.  Fun read even if you don’t design these types of products.  (subscribe to Medical Design)
• Military & Aerospace Electronics: Fun to stay up to date with the products that go into the aerospace industry.  These articles typically give you a glimpse of the future of electronic components and technologies that will be affordable for your designs in a few years… unless you have the privilege of working on planes and spacecraft already!  (subscribe to Military & Aerospace Electronics)

Comprehensive list of trade magazines

• TradePub trade mag listing – thousands of mags in one place
• Penton Media – dozens of great technical mags
• Cygnus Media
• Reed Business Magazines
• Canon Communications – Medical, Pharma, and Manufacturing
• Fabricators and Manufacturers Magazines

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