Paper, Budgets and Finding Balance.

Whether you are a print buyer or a creative professional, you have to consider paper.

A creative might be more focused on what stock will best achieve a desired effect or maybe he or she must choose from stocks detailed in an organization's branding guide. A buyer may be more concerned with the overall production costs of the project. In most instances, both creatives and buyers are hoping to find balance. How can they best achieve their goals while being mindful of budgets.

Let's consider why paper choice is so important. In the world of sheet-fed, offset printing, paper can account for up to 50% of the overall cost of a project. Having an understanding of paper will help you find that balance between goals and budgets.

Historically, paper has been categorized or graded based on brightness with premium sheets at the head of the class. After premium, the grades continued from 1 all the way to 5. The higher the brightness, the higher the grade. Nowadays, you rarely hear paper described or categorized this way. With the grading scale tied to brightness, grades below a 1 or 2 were likely less interesting to buyers.

As a commercial printer, I see lots of print specs daily. Though there are some that have specific paper programs in place, many do not and with them lies opportunity.

Here's one example of how paper can impact the cost of a project -

As a Certified Sustainable Green Printer (SGP), the environment is of the utmost importance to me and to the company I represent; Alcom Printing Group. This particular project belongs to an institution that feels the same way.

Without getting into too much detail, the project is ultimately a 36-page + cover specified to print on a premium sheet with 100% PCW (95 brightness). We'll refer to this as Option 1 moving forward. For those of you that may not know, paper made from 100% PCW or post-consumer waste is produced entirely from paper that comes from recycling bins.

Option 1 is a great sheet. It's a beautiful white and prints really well. But, will its use add value to the piece and / or resonate with the target audience? We know that environmental stewardship is important to us, so let's consider a couple of other options that will help us to find balance while staying green.

There are many environmentally friendly sheets out there that contain varying amounts of post-consumer waste. For the purpose of this comparison, let's consider another sheet containing 100% PCW (90 brightness) as our Option 2 and a sheet with 30% PCW (95 brightness) as Option 3.

This brochure is going to look great printed on any one of these papers. They are all solid options for a high quality publication. So which would you choose? Take a look at the Comparison Chart below. The size, page count, inks and quantity are constant with the paper [and applicable paper cost] the only variable.

Comparison Chart

We know that the institution values the brightness and PCW content of Option 1. An understanding of their audience will ultimately lead to the best balance of cost and outcome.

Will the use of Option 1 lead to the best audience response and therefore justify the cost? If the PCW content is of the utmost importance, then would the use of Option 2 ultimately lead to the same audience response while saving $12,111.00?

If brightness matters most, Option 3 offers a great value with comparable brightness to Option 1 while also delivering significant PCW content at 30%.

This is just one example of how an understanding of paper and your target audience will help you find the best balance. The same thought process can be applied to just about any paper or project. That is, there are certainly options worth considering that you may not be aware of.

If you're developing specifications for a project and are unsure of potential paper options, consider reaching out to a trusted partner to help guide you. At the end of the day, the decision is always yours, but an informed decision is always best.

Hope this was helpful. Thanks for reading.