Sustaining Resources

There are many resources in life that are constantly being used. Of course, we need to use these resources, but there may be a way to lessen the usage and damage of it all. One thing that is used everyday is paper. Everyone uses it, including graphic designers. There are certain things we can try to remember and do to use less paper, or get the most we can out of the paper instead of wasting it.

1. When designing, see if you can possibly put two designs/projects on the same paper if one design won't take up the whole piece of paper. Leaving out blank space just means the rest of the paper will be wasted.
2. Make sure to check your printer to see that it is in perfect working condition so that it will not run out of ink halfway through, leaving you with an strange and unfinished print and a wasted piece of paper.
3. Also make sure that your printer is not jammed and will not be jammed by the paper in the paper feed. Making sure it is clear and ready to print will prevent paper jams that will crinkle and ruin a good print.
4. Check if you have 'old' paper that is big and good enough for your current design to be printed on.
5. If you need to test print a design, if there is old paper that is in usable condition then use that before using clean and fresh new paper. Reusing older paper for testing can help lessen the usage of paper by just a bit.
6. If you need to trim your paper down, go about the process carefully. It is easily to mess up, even with a paper cutter. If it is a really complex trim process for the design, have a professional do it or simply pay extra attention to cutting a clean and crisp line.
7. As like everyone else should be doing, remembering to recycle will greatly help. 
8. Only print the amount that is needed. It should be fine to have a few extra in hand for various reasons, such as your portfolio, but try not to overprint so that you can avoid having leftovers that will only be wasted away.
9. During the design process, you may need to send out examples and mock-ups to your clients. Instead of sending it printed out, you could send it online through e-mail. The benefits of this alternate route is that paper will obviously be saved and people can access easily and faster than a normal delivery.
10. Purchase and use recycled paper. Much less energy and resources are used to produce recycled paper. By purchasing recycled paper, you are supporting the process of recycling.

With these tips on how to sustain paper more efficiently, hopefully graphic designers will try the methods out. Graphic designers use a large amount of paper resources throughout their design process. Some things I have noticed are everyday flyers promoting various things. I have noticed a lot of flyers that show an advertisement for an object, service, or event and it does not cover the entire page. Sometimes, the advertisement is placed in the middle of the paper with almost 50% of the rest of the paper blank. This paper usage could easily be fixed by printing the advertisement at least twice and then cutting the paper into half so that 2 designs can be printed and created from just one piece of paper.

As seen in the example picture above, the advertisement flyer on the left side is placed in the center, thus wasting space on the piece of paper. This can be easily fixed by placing the advertisement horizontal so that it can fit twice on the same piece of paper.