Printing

Adrian Sleeman/ Techincal practice / 14th January

The lecture about printing focused two different aspects that were important to me: how we should deal with printers nowadays and the current trends in print technology.

At present printers have a non-intervention policy in the designers work. Which means that on the one hand we have more responsibility to give things ready to print but on the other hand we have more control of the production, being able to do things better. The lecturer stressed that every printer have its particular expertise, so some printers are better for some type of job than others. For instance, digital printing is ideal for short jobs but a wrong choice for big ones. Having the control on the design production and being capable of choosing the right printer for the right job help us to close the gap between the client expectations for the final product.

Furthermore, I was willing to know more about how can we be sustainable in printing. Usually I prefer printed work. I like the touch and the smell of the paper. However I’m worried about the damage it can cause. I already knew that recycled paper wasn’t a good choice, but I never understood why. The amount of solvents and energy used to produced it and turn it white are less environmentally friendly than others. So the better choice is the certified papers from FSC, who ensure the responsible management of the world’s forests. I was glad to hear that nowadays inks are not so harmful to the environment as they were before, once there was a big technological development in order to discard some pollutant components. Still, digital inks are not as friendly as the offset ones.

It would be nice to have the possibility of being in touch with Adrian Sleeman for some questions that may emerge through our projects. Although we haven’t seen the power point presentation due to technical problems, it would be helpful to have it to learn the terms that differ from language to language.