How To Design an Eco-Friendly Poster

When the world's largest retailer and the largest protein producing company in the world start asking their vendors about their green practices, we know it is time to implement sustainability and waste reduction in all areas of business. The marketing department may not be the first area to come under the green scrutiny, but it should be considered. One common marketing item that can be produced in an environmentally friendly fashion is posters. Here are tips to consider in attempts to make poster printing campaigns, or any printing campaign, more eco-friendly. 

• Consider the basic elements - Your printing company should be your number one partner in greening up your printed materials. Find a printer that uses recycled paper and actively recycles their own paper waste. Look for vegetable based inks and inks with low volatile organic compound emissions being used, as opposed to petroleum based inks. Once you find a quality green printing company, lower your costs by giving them not only your poster printing business but all your printing business. This will increase your savings as well as making all of your print materials greener.
• Consolidate campaigns - If you find that green printing is a little more expensive than your current methods, consider reducing the number of campaigns done in a fiscal year. The advantages of green printing are real and worth working into your marketing plan. Instead of running four big poster campaigns in a year using traditional methods, consider three eco-friendly poster printing campaigns. This not only helps lower costs but also the use of additional materials.
• Advertise your eco-friendly practices - Put a little note in one corner to let viewers know that you are printing responsibly. Environmentally conscious consumers will feel better about supporting an organization that is doing its part to lessen their carbon footprint.
• Double sided poster printing - great for window displays, double the exposure. An eco-friendly double-sided poster placed in a window quadruples your advertising exposure. How, you ask. One, you automatically get exposure on both sides of the window using the same amount of material. Two, using eco-friendly poster printing methods on the poster has lowered your environmental impact on both sides of the window and increased your standing with many consumers.
• Post your poster-image on your website - Clicks are free and the design of the poster has already been paid for so this option really doesn't add to your costs. The added exposure of having the same image on your website as the image on your poster printing displays will increase familiarity with your message and thus the likelihood that passersby will notice the familiar image when they see it again on the street.
• Recycle unused posters - Before throwing out unused quantities from your poster printing project, make sure that the message cannot be reused at a later time. If it can, storing them until a later date will save money and landfill space. If the message is not reusable, make sure you recycle unused quantities.