The Little Green Guide to Printing & Design
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Every decision from the beginning to end of a design job will effect how much your design impacts on the environment. Selecting environmentally preferable paper, printing, and inks are fundamental to reducing environmental impacts. So too, are less obvious, but equally important decisions, such as format, size, number of pages, colour, quantity and aesthetic style. Consider the purpose of the design job and its intended life span, and whether this can or should be enhanced, or made multifunctional. Other aspects to consider are design size and format, colours, bleeds, computer proofing, and number of copies. Design size and formatYou can reduce unnecessary paper waste through considering the smallest paper size for each job and the lowest paper weight necessary. Can an A2 poster work as efficiently as an A3 poster? Can an A4, 24 page report be redesigned as an A5 document? Can a 235gsm cover weight be reduced to 150gsm? Can the number of pages be reduced? Your skills as a designer can be incorporated into the template of your documents, to make a more efficient use of space. Paper sheet sizes are cut according to a standard system of measurements. The most internationally used method is the A format. The proportions of the A formats allow you to divide the sheet into equal parts. An A0 sheet has a surface of 1 square metre and a width to length ratio of 1:2squared. When you divide an A0 sheet in half across the long side, you get 2 x A1 sheets, each with a surface area of half a square metre and the same width to length ratio. The A1 sheet is divided in the same proportion to achieve 2 x A2 sheets and so on. Check with your printer in the early stage of the design process to discuss their press sheet sizes and an efficient way to set up your job. If your printer has an A0 press, they can tile 16 x A4 pages on 1 sheet, or 32 x A5 pages. If your printer has an A1 press they can tile 8 x A4 sheets on 1 sheet, or 16 x A5 pages. Work out the number of pages in a document based on the proportions of your page size to a sheet. A printer will also have a bleed area accounted for, so their maximum print area will be slightly greater than the standard sheet sizes. Sometimes redesigning the dimensions of a job even slightly can result in more pages fitting onto a sheet and paper, film, plates, proofs and ink being saved. For example a 12pp square 210mm x 210mm document would require 2 sheets on an A1 printer. If you were to redesign your page dimensions to 200mm x 200mm, you would be able to fit all 12 pages onto 1 sheet. If your piece is an unusual size draw a diagram as to how this job can be imposed. Think creatively about adjustments that can be made to get maximum usage of the sheet. If you do design a job which has unused sheet space, print another job that can fit in the spare space or have your printer save the offcuts and create notepads out of them. This is a great way to save more money and offer free promotions to your clients or for yourself. ColoursAnother easy way to reduce the environmental impact of your design is to minimize the number of ink colours. A good design should not need to rely on using CMYK + 2 specialty colours, or metallic inks and spot laminates to enhance its communicability. Consider your job and be creative with minimising the number of ink colours. Can a 4 colour job be designed as a 2 colour? Can a 2 colour job be designed as a 1 colour? Can die-cutting or embossing replace an ink colour? Keep your ink coverage minimal in your designs and try to avoid areas of solid colour. The more ink you have on the paper the harder it is to deink in the recycling process and the greater the amount of toxic waste is produced. If you have areas of solid colour consider putting a tone through the colour, such as running the ink colour at 70 per cent. BleedsBleeds account for images or objects in a design that are supposed to run all the way to the paper's edge. The ink is set to extend beyond the document's frame, which is then trimmed away after printing, creating wasted paper which needs to be deinked if recycled. You can design you job with all objects set within the frame of your document, and specify to your printer to impose the design butted up directly next to each other with a 'single cut' between jobs. This removes the need for a bleed and reduces wasted paper and ink. Computer proofingDo as much proofing as possible on screen. Print on both sides of the paper. Request pdf proofs instead of hard copies, and send artwork electronically to your printer when the file size is small enough. When the file sizes are too large for email use a rewritable CD, or Zip and request that they are returned Print runThere are obvious environmental benefits to printing only the required number of copies. However under-evaluating the print run can lead to reprints which can use more resources in the long run. However, extra prints that never meet the consumer and are disposed of without use are a waste of resources, time, energy and money. Assess the print run required for a job with an informed idea of your audience and distribution mechanism. This requires experience and research. Maintain and update your mailing lists regularly. Target your publications accordingly. Raising awarenessInform your audience of the environmentally sensitive initiatives taken to produce your publication. This can be printed on the publication. Depending on the methods you use, you could include the recycled logo and specify recycled content, including the breakdown of post-consumer and pre-consumer fibres, explain that vegetable based inks were used, or an aqueous varnish. Informed people will look for this information in other printed publications. You can even advise the audience how to extend the life span of the publication by advising them to pass it onto a friend, or how to dispose of it properly, when they are finished with it. Design checklistBefore starting a new design, ask the follow questions: (Ortbal 1996)
ReferencesOrtbal, J. (1996) The Ecology of Design AIGAPress, New York |
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