The Basics Of Sustainable Digital Printing

Posted by Brett Slansky | 4:40 AM | 0 comments »

By Stacey Burt


In the recent past people have become aware of the impacts of environmental degradation. As such there have been measures and attempts to develop products for this purpose. Among them is sustainable digital printing. This started only as a fad but has been growing in strength and influence that promoters and publishers have taken a serious approach to it.

Digital Printing refers to transferring a document on a computer or other storage device to a printing substrate by means of a device that accepts text and graphic output. This recent process was developed to replace the earlier lithographic process which depended heavily on printing plates, rubber blankets and repulsive oils, usually found in offset printing.

The advent of environmental consciousness among the general public has caused producers and print companies to feel the need to adopt to their needs. This has brought rise to the new trend of products dubbed as going green. Printing has advanced to green printing with new materials and new forms of printers such as the laser jet and ink jet types.

Among the basic things to ensure you do so as to support sustainable printing in this digital age is to ensure you use newer printing stationery. The stationery should be recyclable, biodegradable and easily renewable. Such include vegetable inks, proper printers, and recyclable paper, all produced in areas that promote safety and Eco-friendly production.

The size and weight of paper is a factor many printing firms and companies are willing to reconsider. A trend is merging where lighter but more compact paper is being used in this printing. It can also be noted that the kind of materials printed today is not of standard dimensions. This is a deliberate move where portions of paper are trimmed off, which has been shown to have immense saving results.

Packaging manufacturers help this movement by producing packing material that can be re-purposed into other forms and uses after its initial use is done. Say for example, a cardboard packaging for a refrigerator can be re-purposed into play chairs, or cut into smaller portions and re-purposed as light bulb holders.

Printing professionals have been noted to adopt modular design. This is a concept borrowed from architecture and engineering where they use modular building. The concept involves creating customized solutions from the standard printing and design solutions and materials. The advantage of this is the ability to reuse, update and repair with ease.

Fonts have also been a decision factor in this printing circles. Product designers are being seen to have a shift towards font faces that are not only elegant but easy on the eye in terms of reading. The font type should also be regarded as ink efficient for it to be acceptable to use especially in packaging and promotional material.

Digital printing is set to revamp the printing industry, as well as have an effect on the way designers, promoters, marketers and packaging companies perform their roles. Digital printing is not only taking up ecologically friendly methods but also changing the way it performs to ensure sustainability of the same. This may be an attempt to prove critics wrong or a genuine attempt at futuristic progress.




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