The Complete Guide to Eco-Friendly Design

Rating:
Summary: Saving Planet Earth
Review: I particularly like books no more than 150 pages in length, with an elegant and simple style and with good glossaries and indexes. Poppy Evans makes all that available in THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO ECO-FRIENDLY DESIGN, one of the user-friendliest books I have ever read. It is also a well-organized book that makes its EARTH IN THE BALANCE message clear and its environmentally responsible print shop easy to set up.

The six chapters look at how to fight toxicity and how much recycling can be done on the job even for those not using such earth-friendly print shop stock as soy- and vegetable-based inks. Susan Quilliam warns in the earlier INTO PRINT: HOW TO MAKE DESKTOP PUBLISHING WORK FOR YOU about recycled paper's rough finish possibly causing press-damaging dust. However, Evans assures us that recycled paper has gotten better while its price has lowered.

The section I find most intriguing is on all the tree-free paper sources. I ended up rooting for kenaf as a new Southern cash crop replacing tobacco. Also, Evans reminds us that the Watson Paper Company of Albuquerque, New Mexico, makes Levi Strauss' non-bleached blue paper from denim scraps.

I would read other books by the author. It is especially helpful to read Evans along with Mary Pretzer's CREATIVE LOW-BUDGET PUBLICATION DESIGN. Probably anyone interested in computer publishing and graphic arts, as well as in environmental studies and marketing, would find this a worthwhile read.