The First Way to Reduce the Carbon Footprint of your Sustainable Graphic Design

Whether composing a design that will be displayed electronically or printed, the decisions of a graphic designer can impact the environment. This is why it is growing more influential for creatives to conceive about genuinely sustainable graphic design. Sustainable design is an approach that acknowledges the impression of the design being generated on the environment. Making careful decisions about the shape, size, and color of your designs has far-reaching implications.


When considering print, the 3Rs approach, i.e., reduce, reuse, recycle, is a helpful technique to keep you centered on imagining inventive ideas to make your design more sustainable. Deem the 3Rs and create environmentally-friendly alternatives for the design, paper, ink, and printing. Here are a few ideas you could implement in your subsequent sustainable graphic project.

Make your designs extra environmental-friendly

Less is more– Do your flyers require to be that loud? Instead of separate letters and envelopes, can your letters double up as origami-inspired self-folding envelopes with no adhesive?

Use more extra space– Fill up white space with the design, and you’ll diminish the quantity of paper you require to deliver your message.

Don’t bleed to the edges– By simply leaving a white border throughout your design, you can decrease ink waste and provide an added paper to be recycled.

Contribute your product a chance of a second life– Could it be practiced as something else rather than ending up in a dustbin?

Printer-friendly website design– Consider the ink amount your design will accept if a user chooses to print out a single page from your website. For example, white text on a colored background will utilize more ink than dark text on a white background.

For printed designs, paper choices, ink, and materials can lessen the carbon footprint of a design piece, implying fewer emissions and efficient use of natural resources. For images viewed electronically, there is also an associated carbon cost and attention to be executed. There is also how a sustainable graphic designer works, his working environment, the energy consumed by his equipment, the companies whose products you want to practice.

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