Paper-Energy and Emissions-What does it all mean?

When you think about buying paper something else to think about is whether or not it is being produced using renewable energy. Most paper mills are claiming the use of "renewable energy", but what is that? Well, there are a couple of ways that companies can claim this, one is by purchasing green power directly from a renewable energy power plant and secondly by purchasing Renewable Energy Certificates (REC) and lastly by generating their own renewable energy on site.

When companies directly purchase the renewable energy it is directly fed by green-power plants and if on the same grid, they can purchase directly from their utility. Most of these suppliers offer either a percentage of electricity usage or more commonly a fixed number of units or blocks of kilowatt-hours.

Renewable Energy Certificates are the most common way paper mills achieve the claim of green power. These certificates provide a subsidy to designated renewable energy sources, such as, solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric and biomass power plants and by doing this it will make them more competitive in the energy market and allow them to sell this energy at a more reasonable rate closer to local market rates. This encourages the use of renewable energy versus a less expensive fossil fuel or nuclear based power source that can be used as a long-term method of growing the renewable energy infrastructure.

There are a handful of paper mills that actually produce their own renewable energy on site, in most cases by hydroelectric generators. They use low-impact hydroelectric operations that preserve the flow of the river which allows continued fish migration due to maintaining the oxygen levels. This type of renewable energy is called on-site generation and the best part is it lowers the demand on the power grid.

Most companies are also reducing atmospheric carbon emissions by becoming carbon neutral. To achieve this you can lower carbon emission directly by lowering consumption and by promoting activities that aid the natural process of carbon reduction. Paper mills have been working toward preserving the wilderness near and around their plants to achieve carbon neutrality.

As you can see we as consumers demand a lot from our paper companies and they have risen to the top and continue to work towards a better cleaner future.

Daily Dose of Inspiration-the I've been slackin' edition

So since I have been slackin' (and I have been because I have needed to get my bookmarks organized) I decided to beef up today's Daily dose of Inspiration.

Street Attack has a very energizing, inspiring blog that taps into various kinds of media and really gets you pumped.

Designers Who Blog ummmm who doesn't love it!

Emigre Fonts, I have always been a fan of Elliott Peter Earls great design examples.

A ridiculous amount of info at Logo Design Love.

Because you it's not always smooth sailing The Graphic Mac.

FSC-Info on Papers I like

When I first started hearing about FSC certified paper there wasn't much of a choice for paper, it was nearly impossible to find a coated sheet that was FSC but now there is choice. Yesterday it was announced that Domtar have 4 additional paper mills that have received the FSC Certification. See article here. Since this is one of the largest manufacturers of paper in the US it is nice to see them taking the initiative more then 10 years ago and it has recognized them as leaders in sustainable growth. In fact they have earned the support of WWF-Canada and Rainforest Alliance.

This isn't the only paper company that is taking steps environmentally, almost all the other paper companies have been striving to be better in harmony with the earth in some way or another. For instance Mohawk joined the EPA's Climate Leaders program in 2007, they partnered up to develop greenhouse gas emission goals which offer customers a product that is carbon neutral throughout the paper making process. They were among one of the first to make paper from post consumer recycled fiber which has allowed them to provide customers with more choice in recycled papers and have found ways to make the paper brighter and whiter without the use of chlorine (a hazardous byproduct). Among the first paper mills to be FSC certified in 2002 and have operated using windpower since 2003 Mohawk is the leader in environmental friendly paper mills.

For coated papers we need to look at Sappi and Utopia. Both have various FSC certified coated papers which range from 10%-30% post consumer waste. Sappi belongs to American Forests and Paper Association, Confederation of European Paper Industries and Paper Manufacturers Association of South African making sure that are involved in industry associations within each major region they operate in. Utopia has a whole line dedicated to FSC-certified coated papers that have varying degrees of post consumer waste.

Monadnock has created A Field Guide: Eco-Friendly, Efficient and Effective Print that I think everyone who is buying print should have on their desk for reference. This handbook is to help us design eco friendly and has the definitions of anything you can imagine regarding the environment issues around printing. It covers such subjects as the chemicals used in the paper process to the inks and what is the best layout to produce the least amount of waste. This is a must have-download it here.

There are more paper companies not mentioned here that have working towards the same goals of keeping the environment sustainable.

Daily Dose of Inspiration

These 2 sites are the first sites that I go to when designing something new, either for inspiration or to get some freebies. First Vecteezy, I love vectors and of course Bittbox I love the textures.

What is Color Management

It is described by current International Color Consortium (ICC) architecture, as the method in which output devices have a common reference. This allows the user to add several output devices by only linking them to a common reference to standardize color throughout.

Color Management is important to translate from one color space to another hoping to maintain integrity of the original. For example your monitor displays color in RGB and printers print in CMYK. These are actually two different languages that sometimes have a hard time communicating the intended output. This is why we use color profiles and why they are so important.

Most devices come with generic ICC profiles, however, these profiles are not as accurate as we would like them to be. Custom profiles have been created and supplied by the manufactures and are preferred when looking for consistency in output. These profiles that come with a specific device are beneficial because the device’s manufacturers are producing a more consistent product thus more consistency from one machine to the next.

When setting up a document with the knowledge of your end product, you should be able to use a custom profile in the application you have chosen to use, for that particular printer. Which will communicate with your monitor and tell it how to look when displaying. So what you see and what you get will be similar.

To get the most accurate color from monitor to printer, calibrating your monitor is necessary. When calibrating you need a print out from the device you are using. Then you match your screen to the printed material using the system preferences to calibrate, this is where you can name and save a specific profile for use later. This may sound simple but there are many factors to consider. For instance is there artificial light, or natural light in your work space? If you are by a window, then the color of your monitor may change as the sun goes behind a cloud. There is also the paper you used to calibrate to, is it glossy, matte, or varnished? As you can see a lot goes into calibrating your monitor and it takes a lot of work to maintain the consistency.

Custom profiling is the most consistent use of color management and takes most of the guess work out of your end product. Even with these precautions it is important to go to press with new pieces because the press operator can tweak the color a bit for you. They are even able to match previously run pieces by locking in the color profiles on the press itself.

If you must have a specific color a spot color is the way to go, using the Pantone Matching System (PMS). This system allows the user to color match specific colors (even metallics and fluorescents) when a design enters the production stage—regardless of the equipment used to produce the color. As with any system, color variance also occurs based on paper stock.

Daily Dose of Inspiration

Today's Daily Dose of Inspiration goes to Randa Clay Design and Social Design Notes, go and check them out!

Daily Dose of Inspiration

Over the years I have collected a lot of bookmarks of different designers, resources, technology and I frequent them at least monthly, if not weekly and some daily. So I thought I would start sharing these blogs with all of you out there and my goal is to share daily. I am sure there will be some that you have heard of and others you haven't. Some of these are new to me as I ventured into the twitter world and found like minded individuals. I am racking my brain as to whom I have followed the longest and I can't remember so here are a few that I have followed the longest.

CreativeTech Types-a great resource for any designer, mac owner or tech nerd.
Creative Bits-this blog is great because you can post things and get feedback and they have a variety of articles regarding design and what is going on in the design world.

I will continue to roll these out and add them to blogroll as I write about them.

Saving Swatches to Use throughout Creative Suite

Color is such an important element in design and when printing you need to be pretty specific to match previously run pieces. We have certain color pallets for quarterly reports that are very specific and need to match from quarter to quarter. We have struggled with consistency but then I found the way to save swatches from you document and you can use them across creative suite.

First thing you want to do is make sure all unused/unwanted color swatches are deleted from your pallet. In Indesign you will pull down the menu on the swatch pallet and you want to save swatches (hi-lighted in yellow) then it allows you to add to a swatch folder or what I do is I put with this clients resources so it is all in the same place. This will save as an ASE file to use in a new indesign file go ahead and use the pull down menu again and this time you want to load swatchs.While working in illustrator you go to the same pull down menu but this time you will select save swatch library to ASE and to load you will open Swatch Libarary and add your swatches that way.


These ASE files work accross all of creative suite and helps keep colors consistent.

I am using this swatch saving method to create coated and uncoated swatch pallets for all of my clients there for it is super easy when you go to so a job for them you can just open up a file set up specs, grab your color pallet and then get designing and you will know that these are the right swatches right off the bat.

More FSC information

Be careful when choosing the FSC logo to go with there projects because there are guidelines here as well.

FSC 100% Label- states that this product, or paper in this case comes from forests that are certified as being compliant with the environmental and social stands of the FSC.

FSC Mixed Sources Label- this label states that it supports the development of responsible forest management worldwide and that the wood comes from well managed forests, company controlled sources and/or recycled material. When adding the recycled symbol this identifies the product as being a post-consumer recycled paper.

FSC Recycled label- this states that the products support re-use of forest resources and in accordance with FSC standards only use post-consumer recycled wood or fiber.

Make sure that when you are designing an FSC piece that you pick the right logo, there is a logo guideline available on their website for downloading. However, printers usually have their own logo with a specific code that acts as their own special code used in the approval process before printing.

Now Better Tasting

I was out and about yesterday and ran into the above picture. What I want to know is who advertises something as "Now Better Tasting"? What did it taste like before? I am sure or hope I am sure that it wasn't the ad agency suggesting this slogan something this horrible ends up coming from a stubborn client who came up with the idea and thought it was brilliant.

Awesome Programs for the Google Android Phone

I know that everyone and there brother has an iPhone but I have t-mobile so I have the awesome google android phone. I love it and what I really love about it is that most of the programs are free unlike the competitor. Last night I ran across a facebook sync application that syncs your facebook account to your contacts on your phone. You log on and it finds your friends photos and attaches them directly to your contacts list on your phone. I think this was a great application that saved me a lot of time "pimpin'" out my phone. So if you have the android go ahead and check out the market place it's free.

To Spec or Not To Spec that is the Question or the Debate

The big talk in design town-Is spec work evil? Personally I think that it is a matter of opinion and boy do people have opinions. Here are some the questions being asked and what I think about them.
Does spec work devalue design professionals and community?
-if you answer yes then you probably wouldn't want the clients that you would be getting with spec'd work.
-you probably have your own business or work at an agency and really don't have to deal with this in your work environment.
Does spec work damage the relationship between designer and client?
-the way I look at it is a lot of people work for design agencies because they don't want to deal with the client and I don't think that this is any different.
Do you think spec work takes advantage of inexperienced designers?
-again it is the way you look at it, this may be the way for young designers to get their foot in the door and start building a portfolio and is this really any different then an agency paying an amateur $10/hr and charging the client $75/hr for their work.
-plus spec work teaches a lot of other hard learned lessons that I think are important to a young designers growth.

These are the most popular questions people ask/debated about spec work. Now I have to say that design agencies have a right not to spec and quite frankly I don't think they should since they probably have already gone to the table to pitch their ideas and have come with case studies related to that potential client. I think spec work mostly web based contests are great for freelancers trying to build a customer base, corporate designers who want to break free from the monotony in their day to day design life, people wanting to make some extra cash, and of course you newbie designers who have no idea what it is like to work with real clients.

However, I think that you have to pick the projects that you spec carefully and make sure that whomever has the posting is actually giving feedback on submitted designs. Following the other designers who have been submitting and read the comments regarding these designs are important because there is a plethora of information to be had from these discussions, both good and bad.

I would love to hear you comments regarding this issue whether you agree or disagree or have a completely different point of view.

Shout out

Last week I had talked about FSC certification (there will be more) and I added the link to my twitter and just for my own curiosity I did a search for FSC and I found that Barry Harley over at http://persuasionpartner.com/blog/ was giving away a free book to the first person who tweated twitted or whatever they are calling it these days what FSC meant. Guess what I won so go check out the blog as there is a give away every friday and the site is all about sustainable graphic design and marketing. Thanks

What is FSC Certification? 1 of Many

I don't know about you but lately clients have been asking for us to use FSC papers and printers and I am not quite sure they really even know what this process is about, it's just something their competitors are using and then of course they want to use it too. My first run in with this was a few years ago when I attended a paper seminar and they had a speaker directly from the FSC who explained why and what they are all about. To start off FSC stands for Forest Stewardship Council and they promote responsible management of forests all around the world. After this seminar I immediately started seeing this logo everywhere, for instance check out your mailbox I am sure there is something in there that is FSC certified and the number of companies keep on growing. The first company that I noticed who was FSC certified was Aveda, they have always been very good about their environmental efforts and using natural ingredients, they even have the eyeliner wood FSC certified. Almost every catalogue I get has the certification but there is one that doesn't which blows my mind and that is LL Bean, I will not give them my business, hell no they are all about the outdoors and camping and canoeing and dressing for hiking and they are too cheap to get there catalog printed on FSC certified papers with certified printers, come on.

The FSC was started in 1993 in response to the over deforestation going on around the world. They recognized that people will continue to need resources from trees for generations to come and they wanted to engage the market to recognize the value of the forests. Forests provide us with a lot of things such as fresh air, clean water, shelter for animals, food, medicine and many other things that we need to survive. Many protected forests have been harvested illegally and the FSC wanted to stop this from happening but also kept in mind that we do need to use these trees but that we can cut them down and use them responsibly.

In order to accomplish this they have developed "The Chain of Custody Certification Process" which insures trees cut from FSC managed forests will go through an all FSC certified process. For example a postcard that you received has gone through 5 different FSC certified processes since it was cut down. The chain goes something like this Pulp Manufacturer -> Paper Manufacturer -> Paper Merchant -> Printer and finally gets approved by the FSC. This process ensures that all environmental and social obligations have been followed.

For a company to start the certification process they need to contact an accredited certifier, submit an application, complete an on-site assessment, receive the certification approval and undergo annual audits. Throughout this process there needs to be someone who is the go to person who is aware of all the policy and procedures, they need to train their staff in these procedures and need to keep records on hand for several years. The company needs to come up with the best way to segregate FSC certified products separate from non-FSC certified products, they need to keep them identified, and document sales, purchases, and delivery documents must be kept.

For printers they need to make sure that they are using the proper inks and disposing of them correctly. This has actually moved printers into using soy inks and other solvents that have almost no chemicals and are safe enough to put down the drain. So not only are they helping the forest but all those pressman out there who have to deal with the hazardous materials.

There is a lot more information that I haven't covered here but intend on continuing to inform you about the FSC.

DAM-Digital Asset Management 2 of many

Earlier this week I went over the basics of setting up DAM and some of the things to consider when doing so. Now I am going to switch gears a bit and go over why it is important to have a system in place. Whether you are a big firm or a one man shop this can be beneficial to you, especially in this time of economic crisis. If you have some down time getting the ball rolling is very easy and will benefit you in the future when you are busy, so get it done.

Another good reason to get this implemented is it is easy to access from wherever you are. Lets say you are at a photo shoot in another city, state or even country but your designer needs to get these shots you just took into a layout and to the client. Well, you just upload them instead of burning a disk and printing out a proof sheet and finally overnighting them, which is time consuming and costs bucks. This also allows you to have freelancers or people work from their home and you have the confidence and peace of mind that you are using the right image.

Right now clients want way more bang for their buck then a year ago and what better way then to build a digital asset system that your client can use too. This also keeps your clients close as they will begin to depend on you for managing there photos. There are a number of ways that you can provide this service to you clients whether it is a simple FTP site or a fully functioning online database. You can set the parameters as to what each user can do, ie. junior designer can use an image but can't approve, client can download low res images but not hi res, etc. You can easily move an image from photoshoot to approval to retouching to final output rather quickly and seamlessly.

I am sure that you are curious if this is going to cost a lot of money in hardware and software and the answer is no. I currently have all of my digital assets on it's own server without any specific software but this isn't necessary you can simply have a folder on your current server. I have a folder for each one of my clients and then I just put the image in that folder, some of the folders have many images and some have just a few but either way if I can't remember what job or what meta data I tagged it with it is easy to scroll through in preview mode. You can however buy software that allows you a bit more customization especially if you are going to set it up for your client to have access, they may require you to style it to their look and feel and this can be done easily enough.

Having a database of your images allows you to use a "new" image without the cost (ie left over shot from previous shoot not already used), work collaboratively, please your clients, work more efficiently and organized.

DAM, I mean Digital Asset Management-1 of many

In this economy those of us who still have a job are trying to work a bit smarter not necessarily harder. With that being said I have had the opportunity to attend a few DAM webinars hosted by extensis, which have been very good. This is a subject that is hard to find info about, mostly you just see ratings for various software programs but these webinar sessions have really encompassed the whole thing. If you don't have the need for a hardcore DAM program there are some easy ways to set up your own system using metadata. Here are somethings to consider when starting your own digital asset management system.

-Define your work flow and find out what your weakness-for instance we often take old files and update them but do we know if the image in it is the final or updated image?
-What is it that you want to accomplish?-for us it was making sure that everyone is using the most current image or logo
-Since metadata is the drive for digital asset management you need to figure out the framework or structure so a list of fields that you think are crucial, the one you that would like to have and the ones that you don't necessarily need but may come in handy.
-The next step is figuring out if you want the data to be controlled vocabulary, rigid, consistent and may be hard to add but easier to search or if you want a loser structure where it is more collaborative classification, flexible, inconsistent and easier to add but difficult to search. You may want to do something in between.

After you figure this out, start small and note that the metadata should be applied as soon as possible. I apply my metadata through my adobe CS3 products which is great because you can run your searches through bridge. Some of the fields that I find most useful are
-keywords-for obvious reasons.
-copyright-usually images that we get from our photography vendors already have this field populated which is very helpful in future uses.
-copyright info url-this is a great field that is also auto-populated by stock houses so you know where they came from, they also usually add a description which isn't all that useful I don't think
-camera data-very interesting for photographers, your camera will usually populate this meta data section which is helpful when trying to find out what camera you used for that particular shot, there is a bunch more info in there that will pull from your camera and other fields you may find come in handy.
These are just a few hi-lights but you can make your own metadata fields that may cater to your specific needs. Next DAM article will touch base on how this can be beneficial to your clients.

Spec's Yes Specifications are very important.

Usually I do all my own printing but sometimes my client has me bid and they bid also. They ask for the design specs so we would be on the same page right? wrong they like to pull the bait and switch you know you tell them what printing specs that you are working with and how it is part of the design but they want to think that they are getting a better deal by bidding something different and expecting it to still be spectacular. They agree, you go several rounds still confirming that they are printing the piece with the specs you gave them because these things need to be in place. For instance when you bid on a silk sheet maybe with some spot varnishes you design accordingly ie. using coated color swatches to get the color you are expecting when finished. I don't know how many times I have gone on press and they are printing on an uncoated stock and they are complaining about the color. Or when I have spent the time to set up spot varnish in my file to get there and see they aren't using any varnish. The frustrating part is that I like to have my files right when they go to the printers production team for several reasons, you can get breaks from printers if you are providing them with good files, it builds report and because I used to work in a prepress department and would be astonished at the files I got in from really good agencies and made me think lesser of them.
***side rant*** Please use a layout program like INDESIGN when laying out your project. Illustrator is not a layout program unless you are doing packaging.

The Rays and Graphic People Post 2

It is currently 11:50 and I have already run across the people vector a new one that I haven't seen yet it was an advertising on pandora.
I wonder how many more I will come across today or any given day for that matter but I will keep you updated.