Trent Design is finding ways to continue the tradition of paper marketing while being earth-friendly by encouraging our clients to choose recycled and FSC certified paper. And many paper companies are producing green lines of their paper, including Neenah who has their Neenah Green line of Environment® Papers. All Environment® Papers are made with 100% certified renewable energy and are made with a minimum of 30% post consumer fiber. Neenah believes that “Smart, environmentally responsible choices shouldn’t be an ‘alternative,’ they should be the standard.” And we concur.

Trent Design is the official design team for the 4th Annual Earth Day Expo, which will be held in downtown Rochester on April 18 & 19. Trent Design has designed all of the posters, postcards and banners advertising the event, which is free and open to the public and will attract an anticipated audience of more than 50,000 people interested in green living and looking to discover healthy, earth-friendly alternatives in food, energy, transportation, clothing, home, garden, finances and more. In fitting with the theme of creating a brighter, greener future for our community, steps were taken to ensure that all marketing materials were made as green as possible. The posters were printed on 100% post consumer recycled paper. 95% of the banners were made from BIOflex®, which is a nontoxic biodegradable banner material, which in landfill conditions (darkness, high heat, moisture and lack of oxygen), attracts microbes that break down the PVC within 3 to 5 years. The vertical banners on the light posts in downtown Rochester were printed with aqueous based inks as opposed to solvent based inks. They were also thru-printed, which means that the ink penetrates through to the back side of the material, which means that ink and energy consumption are reduced by 50%.

Trent Design is promoting paperless ways to market our clients and with so many options (E-newsletters, Facebook, Twitter, Eventful, etc.) it isn’t difficult to see why others are doing the same. Everyone is recognizing the success of Facebook, including Fast Company, who did a feature in their April 2009 issue on Chris Hughes, the 25 year old who helped create two of the most successful startups in modern history, Facebook and the Barack Obama campaign (My.BarackObama.com). Facebook, which started as a networking site for Harvard students, and then was opened up to all students, can now be utilized by everyone, including businesses, bands, and celebrities—and it is.