What are Carbon Neutral Publications & Can They Save You Money?

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As a designer and teacher I care deeply about all aspect of my course and how I present myself and my school to the world.

We have been printing an annual prospectus for nearly 20 years which I believe serves 3 distinct purposes.

• The prospectus should be is well designed, after all; my students are signing up for a design course and will initially judge us, based on our presentation.
• The information contained is clear, comprehensive and well laid out. Again this demonstrates attributes necessary to make a good designer and so any educational establishment should set a good example.

• Potential students get to feel the weight and quality of the publication, This hopefully reflects the quality of the course itself, however it also probably only gets read a couple of times before being discarded.

This last point has been a concern to me particularly when we as designers, are dealing with environmental issues on a daily basis, but think I have found a solution in carbon neutral publication.

I pride myself on the fact that we as a college have always been a market leader in technology and innovation.

We were the first to introduce CAD and computer modelling into our curriculum and also to embrace internet technology and although not at the forefront, if compared to a .COM industry, we are light years ahead of our competition.

Since 2007 we have been using www.yudo.com an on-line publication service that gives you the look and feel of a magazine or book without the waste of paper and all the associated expenses.

It gives us the freedom to publish and update quickly, while virtually eliminating the need for publication budget.

2010/11 will be the first year we don't offer our customers a hard copy. We still produce a PDF version which is fast to download and hope that our public are ready to accept an electronic only option.

Your comments and thoughts would be much appreciated!
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