Eco-friendly design & print
What is eco-friendly design & print?
"Print less and get more value" is my guiding principle in eco-friendly design & print and there are lots of ways to make great strides in your design & prints sustainability, cost and effectiveness. The main things I can recommend are...
- Use a more sustainable form of printing - I can offer long run printing using Vegetable oil based inks which come from a sustainable resource (as opposed to the industry standard petroleum based ink printing). Vegetable oil based inks are far less toxic, need less chemicals in the printing process and are easier to de-ink and recycle. Using a good recycled or FSC paper with these inks gives you a quality that is as good as traditional printing along with a very high degree of sustainability.
- Incorporate print-on-demand -
For certain communications it’s very effective to allow users to download and print their own material from your website. I provide these typically as PDF (portable document format) files, which is the standard for print-on-demand material. PDFs retain a professionally designed appearance and provide simple viewing and printing for your audience and are especially good where you need to update content frequently or the expected distribution doesn’t warrant an industrial print.
- Think about general print optimisation -
A mixture of industrial print and print-on-demand can be used to deliver your message in a highly efficient manner. We can future-proof your communications by printing only content that will stay valid for as long as your expected distribution period lasts, and compliment this with an online print-on-demand resource that can be easily updated by you and viewed and printed by your audience at their leisure. We can squeeze more efficiency saving from your print by simply making sure your page sizes are an optimal size for efficient layout on the printing presses. This can provide you with big cost savings and seriously reduce the waste that is created from your project.
- Use good design - See the good design that works section below for details about this.
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The benefits to you
If you are in a progressive or ethical business or organisation you need to look at your environmental impacts across the board.
Using ethos for your eco-friendly design & print guarentees you that all of your print media is sourced and developed with sustainability in mind - and you in turn can be proud to tell your customers that you are one of the new generation of consciencious businesses and organisations who choose to support this progressive development.
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What I can design & print
I can design and print a large range of marketing and communications material with a majority that can be printed ethically. Below are just some. Call or e-mail me if you require something that isn't on the list.
- Leaflets, Brochures, Booklets, Flyers
- Press Ads, Magazine Ads, Yellow Pages Ads
- Posters, Information & Exhibition graphics
- Reports, Forms, Newsletters, Invitations
- Stationery (business cards, letterheads, compliments slips, folders, envelopes etc)
- Postcards, Christmas cards, Calendars
- Point of sale design, Menus
- CD, DVD and Video covers and inserts
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Good design that works
What is 'good design'?
Good design simply does its job well, and it's the same for graphic design as it is for product design. If a product looks nice but you can't figure out how to use it, or its just plain uncomfortable to use (we've all had tin-openers like this), then its not good design.
I think the primary role of communication design is to articulate a clear, engaging message and create some form of action from the viewer. The viewer in most circumstances isn't thrilled to receive yet another piece of corporate communication and will in most cases exert the minimum effort towards your communication in order to be confident that it can be quickly binned (hopefully recycled). This is why your communications must be developed to make it easy for your viewer to understand and take up your offering.
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Production process
The general process a use for graphic design is...
- FREE Project planning - We discuss your needs, goals and resources and you educate me about anything that impacts upon them. We brainstorm a variety of strategic project guidelines (in communication, functionality, aesthetic and sustainability) and we evaluate, research and refine these until we have a set of very well considered pointers. We never rush this stage as it determines the ultimate success of the project (this is also why I provide it free of charge). When we are settled on the final guidelines for production the project planning phase is complete.
- Quote & Deposit - On your formal agreement to proceed with the project (within the production guidelines), I will send you a quote (*Time sensitive) and an invoice for £200 deposit. New clients must settle the invoice by cheque or cash before I proceed.
- Concept Development - I create a range of scamps (rough sketches) that show various conceptual routes. These are for us to assess and sometimes to test with a small segment of your target audience. After this we sometimes revise our ideas and produce more scamps.
- Design - A small selection of scamps chosen to be created at a virtually finished quality. Draft images and copywriting are produced, aquired or contracted out and the finished designs are used for evaluation and potentially more testing.
- Production - The chosen design route is created as finished print ready artwork which includes the final copywriting and imagery.
- Delivery - The finished artwork is sent to print (usually be me) or delivered to you in a format of your choice.
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Examples of my design & print work
The following are links to my design & print work on the home page...
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