Project 010: No Bleed Aesthetic

For Project 010 we solicited your Project ideas. Professor Malu Roldan wrote us with this one:

I’d like to propose a project that invites submissions of page layouts for printed material that avoid bleeds and other elements that require high ink usage. I’ve been trying to promote sustainable printing in the university where I work and one thing I’ve found is that while folks are aware of ways to address paper usage (e.g. recycled substrate, fsc certified papers), there is less attention paid to reducing the usage of petroleum-based inks and toner. Since use of soy inks is impractical right now, one of the ways of addressing this issue is to reduce the percentage of ink coverage on the page. However, it has been hard for most users (and designers) to envision attractive ways of doing this. So I propose a project to generate a catalog of ideas for printed material designs that minimize the amount of ink coverage on a page. It would be great if users could go to GOOD Magazine’s site to view these ideas and become inspired to incorporate the ideas into their own projects.

Partner organizations might be those promoting sustainable printing methods—e.g. Forest Stewardship Council—or a printer vendor interested in sustainability—e.g. Hewlett Packard (full disclosure: this idea grew out of my HP-funded research project on Digital Publishing).

Thanks — love the magazine!

Malu

Malu Roldan, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Management Information Systems
San Jose State University