digitaldots.info

Digital Dots is an independent graphic arts research group specialising in digital prepress, printing and publishing technologies. The company is a collection of like-minded consultants and professional journalists with decades of experience working in the graphic arts industry. We publish a range of articles and reports and we also manage The Verdigris Project.

Shifting conversations

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The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner We have always been strong supporters of the printing industry and its sustainability. We have encouraged the use of print as a sustainable communications medium because it is mostly based on a renewable resource, paper. It is still highly sustainable as a medium, however it is increasingly clear … Read more

Where do the climate change numbers come from?

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The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner We are told with increasing shrillness that something must be done about climate change. And it must, but too often we have dismissed the calls to arms simply because we can. We can hide behind the lazy idea that it’s not as bad as it seems, that someone, … Read more

Processless plate calculator from Kodak

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The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner Switching to processless plates ought to be a no brainer, since they are far kinder to the environment than conventional plates. The decision should be not whether to do it, but whose plates to go for. Agfa, Fujifilm and Kodak are the top developers and manufacturers of this … Read more

Bottom up progress on climate change mitigation

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The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner It’s been over ten years since we started the Verdigris project to raise environmental awareness within the worldwide graphics industry. In that time there have been sporadic flurries of interest in sustainability from printing companies, but rather more interest has come from their customers, the print buyers. But … Read more

Recycling times are changing

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The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner Recycling is getting more complicated. Rapid developments in substrate recipes, inks and imaging technologies, render established business models meaningless. Disruption in packaging is turning everyone away from petrochemical based plastics, and paper recycling is becoming immensely confused. Deinking and recycling methods m ust keep pace. Never was that … Read more

HP investing more into water based inks

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The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner HP has announced a $200 million investment into furthering its water based printing technologies for corrugated packaging and textile printing. The money will be spent on digital printing technologies for these applications in order to make them more sustainable. The money will be spent over at least five … Read more

Print the Change cooperative

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The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner A new cooperative for green printing has been set up for sheet fed offset printing companies. The Print the Change cooperative wants to attract organisations keen to turn themselves into more environmentally friendly outfits. At first glance, and in the current eco-aware climate, this looks like a brilliant … Read more

Toppan pushing the boundaries

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The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner We all know the advantages of going direct to press for the environment. Direct digital printing requires no intermediate steps to create a printing forme. The print can be produced on demand and benefits from data driven production so variable data is possible and colour quality can be … Read more

Colour me green

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The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner These days interest in sustainability and reducing environmental impact appears to be high. At least it is amongst consumers and governments, but although lots of people talk the talk, the number of companies in the graphics industry actually doing anything real is pretty dismal. Even amongst big name … Read more