Monadnock Paper Mills Goes Carbon Neutral

I'm happy to report on Monadnock's continued support of sustainable manufacturing. Just recently Monadnock had purchased renewable energy credits to cover the 51% of its electrical usage that they did not generate themselves through their low impact hydroelectric dam. Now Monadnock has gone one better by purchasing carbon offset credits to offset the total carbon footprint from its manufacturing facilities as they relate to the manufacturing of their graphic arts and packaging papers.

Meet one of the nice folks at Monadnock in this video interview.

Bravo. Another step forward!

Wausau Paper's effective water management

Every consumer should understand how much influence they have as a group. You can see all over the market how resource intensive companies are taking a very close look at how they operate their plants. My industry, the paper industry is no different.

I know the folks at Wausau Paper personally and I know as individuals that many of them genuinely care about the environment. However you need a company management that sees better business practices to be in its best interest to make real change. This is how Wausau Paper appears to view things.

Over the last two years Wausau Paper has reduced their consumption of water at their Brokaw, WI paper mill by, get this, 2 billion gallons of water per year. That's approximately 5.5 million less gallons of water consumed a day. This water consumption savings is equal to approximately 80 million loads in a dishwasher and 70 million loads of laundry.

That's impressive and I congratulate Wausau Paper for their efforts. I also congratulate the consumers who have voiced their desires for cleaner manufacturing. Keep up the good work.

Designing on translucent paper

Back in 1994 when we developed our first line of translucent printing papers, Glama Natural, the art of designing with translucent papers was pretty rudimentary. We found that graphic designers worked with theses more opaque papers as if these papers where not translucent at all. You would see typical process printing on the surface of the paper without including any of the translucent dimension of the paper into the design concept.

Our first Glama Natural swatch book had a printed sample with a simple opaque white ink printed on the translucent paper representing fog rising from a lush forest which was depicted on the coated sheet below. The show through and the effect of the interaction of the two images were outstanding. From that point forward we saw many graphic designers taking the first steps towards utilizing the interactive nature between translucent paper and the opaque papers below.

CTI Paper USA penned a recent article which gives a more detailed overview of how to create effective design using translucent papers.

Paper Weights Demystified Again...

This important and confusing topic of how to understand paper weights in the U.S.A. deserves another visit. We constantly hear from our friends that paper weights remain confusing to many people. Understanding paper weights is a matter of reading some of the short articles and charts we publish on this topic.

You will learn that the main categories (Basis) of fine paper weights are: Writing, Text, Cover, Bond, Index, Tag and Bristol. It is always important to know which basis you are talking about. An 80 lb text paper is not equal to an 80 lb cover paper. The cover is a heavier paper.

The Importance of Press Checks

Some folks in the design community think that once you've created your design and shipped it off to your local printer that your work is done. Just sit back and let the accolades roll in, au contraire, you're close to the goal line but still far enough away.

Many things can change from your Mac to the print shop. Of course CMYK color won't be one of them if you used the TINTBOOKS color management system. Still you have plenty of factors that you should personally check to ensure your project comes out as you've planned.

We've outlined some points on How to Do Press Checks succesfully.