Recycled paper & soy based inks

Has anyone had any good experience using recycled paper and soy based inks? I have a very eco-conscious client looking for letterpressed wedding invitations and would love to offer her something of great quality that uses these “green” materials. Any recommendations, sources for supplies, etc is much appreciated!

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Recycled paper, like any paper, varies tremendously in quality, look & feel, and “printability” so you’ll want to do some experimenting first, but most recycled stocks should print fine using letterpress.

I’ve used some soy based inks and, while my experience isn’t very extensive, they seem to behave very much like any other oil based ink. Because soy oil doesn’t dry by evaporation, like petroleum oils do, the drying time of a printed piece may be longer, but that seems to depend more on the stock than anything else. I’d guess you’d never notice “slower” drying on any paper you’d use for wedding invitations.

For anyone that wants to try soy based ink, I do have several colors available in 1/4-lb. tubes (as well as a variety of oil based and some rubber based), and I’ll try to get more colors of soy based ink if there’s interest. (E-mail Ink(at)ORCHIDesign.com).

Dave