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No Days Off's recycled stationery
Posted by Gavin Lucas, 24 January 2012, 10:22 Permalink Comments (10)
Having just moved to a new studio last year, London-based No Days Off needed to get new stationery printed. Being designers, they naturally saw an opportunity to refresh their own identity. But what to do with all the redundant old business cards and letterheads? Recycle them, of course...
"We wondered whether we might be able to do something a bit more interesting than just sticking [the old stationery] in the recycle bin and buying in a load of new paper," explains Patrick Duffy of No Days Off. "In our minds, the simplest thing to do was to just pulp all this old paper and make it into new paper, and then print our new stationery on that," Duffy continues. "Direct recycling, cutting out the middle-man. Easy, we thought...
"After a series of fairly negative responses from paper suppliers (of the 'can't be done' variety), we were eventually led to Jim Patterson of Two Rivers Paper. Jim proved to be extremely helpful, and said that he could do the job, no problem. So we bundled everything together and sent it off to Frogmore Mil in Hemel Hempstead."
The Making of Red Hat Paper from No Days Off on Vimeo.
"We ended up with just under 200 sheets of 320gsm SRA2 paper, which was more than enough for our new stationery requirements," says Duffy. "So we decided to make a new print too. By a happy coincidence, we discovered that a young printer, James Boughen, had set up a studio right next door to the Two Rivers paper mill, so we asked him to produce this new print for us:
"We exhibited the letterpress print in a recent show at ad agency AMV BBDO, and we have a limited number for sale (at £35 each) in our Shop," adds Duffy.
The stationery was all hand typeset and letterpress printed by Adams of Rye.
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10 Comments
Quite an inspirational piece of design work, it's really sad to see the 'no can do attitude' from today's paper suppliers. I really hope that collectively the design industry can help to change this attitude but it's nice to see the smaller producers taking on the challenge.
2012-01-24 11:08:10
What I find sad is the 'no can do' attitude that permeates society in general to be honest....
2012-01-24 12:23:39
Saska & Richard
Don't moan - pick up the phone.
Jim Patterson 07818 435711
2012-01-24 14:42:23
@ Saska
True
2012-01-24 14:44:40
A simple and clever idea. Great work.
2012-01-24 19:36:23
I would think the problem is less of an issue of 'no can do' and more of an issue of economy of scale.
Recycling paper at a small scale is probably extremely inefficient in terms of energy usage. If they wanted to save the planet, there could be better ways of doing it.
Would make an interesting article, I think.
2012-01-25 13:34:55
Entropy is in the air!
The energy expended in this excercise (electricity & gas) cost about a fiver. Of course scale of economy is an issue. I reckon tonne for tonne about twice the usage. expected in a conventional mill.
Saving the planet doesn't come into it. This was a fun, thought provoking job & helped incidentaly to keep
a couple of fine craftsmen in employment.
Giz a job
Jim Patterson.
2012-01-25 15:56:20
Great one, guys. Just wish everyone would think like that. As to the fiver expended in energy usage... how much paper did you get for that? Considering the price of a box of paper made the conventional way with whatever chemicals and virgin pulp, all too often, this may still be a great way.
As DW said, it would make a great article. Any interest in doing one for the GREEN (LIVING) REVIEW?
Regards,
Michael Smith
Editor
GREEN (LIVING) REVIEW
2012-01-29 12:34:11
Michael
About half a hundredweight. We are very duodecimal here! If anyone wants to write it all up I'm happy to help.
Jim Patterson
2012-01-31 09:04:40
The no can do attitude applies to quite a lot of companies in the recycling industry and on the fringe of the industry as well. From a designer's/ Marketers point of view, I love the minimalist approach you've taken to the design. From a recyclers point of view, I think you've hit on a very good niche solution which probably went down really well as a marketing tool as well.
2012-04-28 21:58:27
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