At Newman Thomson we truly believe in sustainable print, we are FSC® certified, a not for profit organisation focussed on the welfare of the worlds forests. We are also ISO 14001 certified which recognises our commitment to conform with all environmental laws and regulations and actively work to minimise the environmental impact of all current and future activities and processes, reduce energy use and promote environmentally considerate practices throughout our supplier chain. 

It’s not just about badges and certificates though, we’ve switched virtually all of our lighting from incandescent to LED, saving a vast amount of energy, and reducing wastage. We’ve switched to processesless plating, virtually eliminating the need for harmful chemicals, and reducing water usage. We no longer use paper hand towels or electric hand dryers, we use continuous towel rolls which are collected and recycled. Our vending machines only use paper cups, not plastics. We could go on, but you can always read more on our environmental page.

2. Choose the right paper

This sounds like an obvious point, but it is one that is often overlooked. The range of environmentally friendly papers is growing continuously. As a rule, try to avoid glossy stocks, as these can cause issues with recycling. The most environmentally aware choice would be an uncoated stock, which as the name suggests, doesn’t have any form of coating on it.

We offer fully recycled, part recycled, and FSC® papers, as well as carbon balanced papers which allow you to offset the amount of carbon dioxide created during the production process.

3. Try to avoid glues and plastics where possible

Whilst you might not know it, the application of glue to a product, can render it un-recyclable. If you need to affix items to your printed products try and think about using different methods, such as slits, or tabs. One of our design team loves making challenging die cutter guides, so if you need a hand, just get in touch.

4. Use print on demand

Why print way more than you need of something? With the developments in the web to print landscape it’s now easier than ever to simply print what you want, in the quantity you want, when you want. No more throwing away out of date publications, no more over ordering. What’s more, due to it’s nature, print on demand work is virtually always printed on digital presses, which are far more environmentally friendly than their litho counterparts. No metal plates needed, no harsh chemicals to clean presses, considerably more energy efficient, in fact our 3 HP Indigo digital presses themselves were all produced in a Carbon Neutral production process.

5. Add value without environmental cost

Perhaps you want to create a glitzy event invite, and had been considering using a glitter or something similar to give it impact, neither glitter, nor the glue used to apply it are terribly good for the environment, so why not consider something that not only looks better, but doesn’t have a negative impact like embossing, or die cutting?

6. Recycle any surplus print

If you do have any left over print from previous jobs which are surplus to requirements, then let us know at the time of placing your next order, and we’ll pick it up and bring it back to our plant for recycling. That way, the product gets recycled, and it saves an unnecessary journey as our transport partners are in and out of our place every day. Not only will your product have been printed on recycled stock, it will then be being recycled again, now that is sustainable print.

7. Do your research

Find out what market you are aiming for and tailor your product to them as much as possible, whilst the ‘scatter gun’ approach to marketing used to be the only way, it ends up very wasteful and therefore not very cost effective, or good for the environment.

What would you rather be handed? A lightweight glossy thin generic flyer, or a high end stock with beautiful finishing and perhaps even personalisation (simple with digital print).

So whilst on the face of it you may be paying the same for less, if you consider that a lot of your cheap marketing materials will be going straight in the bin (and not the recycling bin as they’re on gloss) the higher end stuff which you’ve carefully targeted to the correct audience will be gaining traction and working harder and more efficiently for you. You’ll have also used less paper and energy to create it. Everyones a winner!

8. Check, check and check again.

Again, this may sound like an obvious one, but probably the easiest way to reduce environmental impact of your jobs, is to eliminate errors. One small typo could double the size of your job, thus doubling the environmental impact and of course the cost. Before going to press, have several people check over the job, ideally some who have no involvement with the job as they will be more likely to spot any errors that could be missed by over familiarity with the project.

9. Don’t encapsulate

If you have a job that you want to used in a hard environment, instead of going for the old fashioned method of encapsulation which uses all manner of glues and plastics, why not look at using a synthetic paper such as Agfa’s Synaps material, which is waterproof, tear proof, UV stable and of course recyclable. Less processes are involved as it’s printed on in a similar fashion to paper, as opposed to using the printer, then the guillotine, then the encapsulation machine, then the guillotine again.

10. Sticking around

There was a time when all stickers featured non-recyclable adhesives, and as such were (regardless of what stock was used) non-recyclable, we can now source FSC® approved stickers with biodegradable adhesives, so a sticky problem, has now been alleviated.

If you’d like to discuss any other aspects of sustainable print, please either drop us an email to info@newmanthomson.co.uk, or give us a call on 01444 480700

The post 10 ways to ensure you’re using sustainable print first appeared on Newman Thomson.

Digital vs Litho print

General notes:

Digital is more suitable for shorter runs and Litho for longer runs. We have already established that digital is more cost and time effective on shorter run jobs, and that the quality of print is pretty much equal to that of litho. So, what else differentiates the two then?

Digital tends to produce a single copy of a file, so if you have a 28pp self cover document of which you want 100 copies, a digital press will produce 100 collated copies of a 28pp document, which will then need binding, and any other finishing (trimming etc.).

A litho press would produce 100 copies of the first sheet (so OFC, IFC, OBC and IBC) then 100 copies of the next sheet, and so on, which would then need collating, followed by whatever finishing was specified by the client.

Litho printing requires plates being made to transfer the image to the paper, a digital press simply uses a file to print from much like you home desktop printer, though obviously on a totally different scale.

Downtime between jobs and set-up times are much less on a digital press.

Different stocks

Most litho presses can run down to around 90gsm stocks if you wanted them to, and up to 450gsm, the digital presses tend to run around 115gsm lowest and up to around 350gsm.

There are specific stocks designed for digital and litho printing, though increasingly more stocks are compatible across both methods.

DPI

This is where digital has an advantage, a digital press can produce decent quality images from a 150dpi file, a traditional litho press would need 300dpi minimum to create the same results. Whislt this doesn’t mean you can print web graphics at an acceptable level of quality, it is a little more forgiving.

Overprinting

It is worth considering that if you plan to overprint the job (i.e. it will be going through another printing process such as a desktop printer) then some digital press processes are not compatible as the image will be melted in the process.

Variable Data

This makes each print a unique print and as such is most suited to Digital printing. The use of this service will considerably increase the return on investment and response rate for mailing campaigns compared with the shotgun approach.

To learn more Wikipedia has this to say about digital printing.

The post Digital Vs. Litho Printing, what are the differences? Info Graphic first appeared on Newman Thomson.

When setting up perfect bound jobs, or one with PUR Binding or Burst Binding and ‘Read Across’ (whereby you have text or images flowing across from the inside front cover onto the first text page) there are some important things to consider to avoid the image or text showing incorrectly. Read on to find out more about setting up perfect bound jobs.

The above types of binding use a hinge system where a small sliver of the inside front cover, the spine and a small sliver of the inside rear covers are glued to the text pages, therefore these parts become invisible once the document is bound.

The illustration below shows this glued area in red.

The correct way to set up a job like this is to use two separate copies of the same image (one on the IFC and one on Page 1), with the left hand edge of the image on Page 1 perfectly following on from the right hand edge of the image on the IFC.

You can see an example of this below with the hinge area shown in white, though in InDesign for example this gap would not show.

Below is how the finished bound document would appear.

Below is an example of where the image is one image flowed across the two pages, and would end up with part of the image being swallowed up into the glued area.

Below is how the the finished bound document would appear if the job had been set up incorrectly, with a slice of the image (the width of the glued section) missing, causing the image to appear misaligned.

This process can also be applied to the last text page onto the Inside Rear Cover.

If you require any more information on how to set up your print job, please contact us, and our experienced Studio team will be able to advise on the best solution.

To see other different types of bindings, click here.

The post Setting up perfect bound jobs first appeared on Newman Thomson.

If you need any more help, or have any questions regarding mailing, or paper weights etc, please don’t hesitate to contact us, or give one of our friendly knowledgeable team a call on 01444 480700.

Listed below are the current (as of 15/08/2017) Royal Mail weights and dimensions for postage categories; Letter, Large Letter, Small Parcel and Large Parce. For more information on postage details please visit Royal Mail’s website here.

The post Paper weight calculator first appeared on Newman Thomson.

Here at Newman Thomson we can offer a wide range of folding and binding options for your digital or litho print job, whether it’s a 4 page leaflet with a simple single fold single sheet , or a perfect bound book you can be sure our expert team produce exactly the result you are after. Our binding guide below gives you a visual representation on what’s what and how it works.

Below are examples of the most common folds and bindings which we offer. For more information about setting up your artwork for specific types of job, please visit our artwork guide here, contact us here, or call our friendly and knowledgeable team on 01444 480700.

We have a selection of templates available for die cut folders here.

 

4 page single fold	6 page gate fold	8 page gate fold	6 page concertina fold	6 page standard fold
8 page parallel double fold	8 page concertina fold	Broadsheet SRA2 double folded to A4	6 page gate fold with flip	8 page parallel map fold
8 page reverse map fold	10 page concertina fold	12 page standard letter fold	12 page concertina letter fold	endorsement fold
portrait (upright)	landscape (wide)	6pp cover with text-throw-out at front & back	cover, flysheet & text	cover with two text sections
perfect bound	folder with diagonal pockets	folder with horizontal pocket	folder with vertical pocket	folder with L shaped pocket
saddle stitching	stab	wiro binding	loop stitching

The post Binding Guide first appeared on Newman Thomson.

The post Cutter Guides first appeared on Newman Thomson.

A Series is used for most standard sized general printing jobs.

A Series Paper Sizes

B Series Paper Sizes

Envelope Sizes

These are just a few of the standard envelopes available.

C Series Paper Sizes (Envelopes)

Magnification/Reduction scales for A Series Papers

The post Paper Sizes first appeared on Newman Thomson.