How Graphic Designers Can Reduce Their Environmental Impact

Design

Jun 13

Written By Tiffany Schultz

What is sustainable graphic design?

According to Latcham, “Sustainable graphic design is an approach that considers the impact of the design being created on the environment. Making careful choices when it comes to the shape, size and color of your designs can have far-reaching implications.”

The intention of a sustainable graphic design is to eliminate the negative impacts on the environment.

What are the impacts?

You might wonder what graphic design has to do with environment. It’s beyond choosing the right paper. Decisions like paper, ink and materials all reduce the carbon footprint of a design piece and produces fewer emissions and uses more natural resources. Ask yourself, “Can the design be considered for digital?” Think of communicating by creating a personalized email, social media post, or SMS. Basically, designers can make many informed decisions to minimize their impact on the environment.

How can your designs be more environmentally friendly?

Check out a few of our best practices:

Less is more - Put mailing directly on the back of the design instead of having an envelope and letter.
Don’t bleed to the edge - Reduce ink and paper waste by leaving a white border around your design.
Second life? - Can your product be used as a fun poster or for a kid's craft?
Printer-friendly website - Choose your web design carefully. You want to create something with a white background, vs. black with white ink, essentially creating a website that uses less ink.
Use recycled paper - If possible, use recycled paper or paper that hasn’t been chemically bleached.
Avoid any unnecessary printing - Do you really have to print out all those design drafts?
Consider your printer - Select a printing company that has considered emissions.
Is your file size too big? - The larger the image and file size, the larger the energy consumption. Reducing the size of your design is a small change that cumulatively can have a positive effect on energy consumption.
Utilize the cloud - Rather than emailing clients your designs, use a cloud-based solution for sharing and collaboration option.

Equipment – As graphic designers, we need to have up-to-date equipment to run our programs. Save energy by unplugging your device when it is not in use or fully charged.

We’re doing our part…

Overall, we recognize the value of adopting environmentally friendly design practices. Although we do not have control over how printing plants are run or what becomes of the end product, we know our graphic designers play an important role in how those businesses conduct themselves. Check out some of our sustainable design work here.