A note about the glossy Good cover
Home » Blog » Annabel McAleer » A note about the glossy Good coverWhat's the latest Good doing with a gloss cover?
We got a lot of letters when we experimented with a glossy cover for Good in early 2009. The reader feedback was loud and clear: a matt cover just looks more Good. So what's the latest issue doing with a gloss cover?
Well, it was a stuff-up at the printers actually—and it won't be happening again! It seems that an old order form was referred to, so the cover was finished to early-2009 specifications instead of the current matt order.
I'm pretty sure most of us have had similar "thwarted again!" moments. You know, like when you carefully gather up hastily discarded wrapping paper at Christmas to fold and re-use next year … only to find it in dumped in the recycling bin (or worse, the rubbish bin) later in the day, tidied away by a well-meaning relative.
Multiply that level of annoyance by a few thousand percent, and you'll be able to picture me opening the first box of our beautiful new issue when it was delivered to the office last week! Luckily, the news about the inside of the mag was all good: it's another great issue, packed with loads of practical information and nifty ideas!
Other editors might have thrown a huge strop about the cover (okay, I did do that part) and ordered a re-print. But with the Goodies and our publishers being the eco-friendly folks that we are, pulping tens of thousands of perfectly readable magazines because of someone's honest mistake simply wasn't an option.
So, once again, there's a glossy Good on the newsstand. We hope you'll understand that we did listen to your feedback! We will continue to specify a matt cover for the magazine in future.
Some technical info
Good #12 was given a 'gloss coat varnish' instead of our usual matt seal.
Although a matt finish on the cover looks more eco-friendly, it makes no environmental difference whether a gloss or matt varnish is used. Both can be recycled.
There is an environmental difference between a laminated cover (used by some magazines) and a varnish (used by Good), explained below by Good's print manager:
Lamination, whether gloss or matte, uses a thin film of polypropylene, applied by heat and pressure to the ink. Polypropylene can be recycled. However, once it's attached to the surface of the ink it's effectively 'welded on'. When the book goes to recycling the polypropylene is extracted from the pulp and dealt with separately.
[Issue #12] was Gloss Coat UV Varnish, which gives a glossy finish. This is a varnish that is applied and then cured using UV light (no ozone). The varnish polymerises and adheres to the ink. All of this can be recycled.
There is no correlation between gloss/matte and recyclability. This is purely aesthetic. It's the components and application that matters. A lot of research goes into this.
In my opinion and based on experience the recyclers are far happier with taking inked and varnished waste (post consumer) for recycling over the laminated variety.
Fortunately, the 'accidentally glossy' cover was given the more eco-friendly varnish, rather than laminate finish. And on the inside, where it really counts, this issue is full of great information and really interesting articles—we hope you enjoy reading it!
Wed April 21, 2010 @ 10:06 AM
