The latest creative and effective uses of print, from a Christmas card with a serious message to an edible travel ticket with a calming ingredient.

A Christmas Card To Remember

Age UK Birmingham produced a Christmas card to draw attention to the effects of dementia, using disappearing ink to signify how the condition can destroy memories, as well as the lives of those who have it. Upon exposure to air, the ink gradually fades over time, changing the meaning of the image and highlighting the loneliness experienced by people living with dementia, as well as their families. All proceeds from the cards went towards supporting the charity’s work with older people living with dementia.

Booze Buddy

Finnish beer brand Karhu has come up with a handy device made of paper that quickly tests the level of alcohol in your system. Aimed at partygoers and festival fans, the single-use breathalyser just needs to be licked to get a reading between 0.02% and 0.05%, indicating whether the user is safe to drive. Using technology developed by Finnish company Promilless and backed by the Technical Research Center of Finland, prototypes of the ‘Lickalyzer’ have been successfully tested at the country’s Solstice Festival. “Self-testing has become commonplace in the era of Covid,” says Tommi Vaskivuo, President of Promilless. “These wristbands make self-monitoring convenient and quick during festive times. We monitor our sleep, so why not do the same for our alcohol consumption?”

Keep Cozy With Cardboard

With the world using more and more cardboard packaging for e-commerce, companies are looking at increasingly creative ways to recycle the cardboard into new materials. One company in the US is using it to produce cavity insulation for houses, making thousands of homes warmer and cutting down the costs and resources required to heat them. Based in Buff alo in the state of New York, CleanFiber produces cellulose insulation that can fill the cavities between walls and under roofs and fl oors. Cellulose insulation is traditionally made using newspapers, but with the decrease in newspaper circulation, the company turned to cardboard as a cheaper and more available material. Not only does cardboard produce less dust than the newspaper version, it takes less energy to produce than foam or fi berglass insulation, resulting in lower carbon emissions.

Box Clever

Domino’s has started rolling out pizza boxes that answer the questions consumers have about whether the boxes are recyclable in their area, and if the grease left on the containers makes them unsuitable for recycling. The global pizza company has redesigned its boxes in the US, replacing the Domino’s logo with the words ‘Recycle This Pizza Box’ and adding a QR code that takes you to a website that will tell you the exact regulations in the consumer’s area. It follows a study by the pizza company’s box supplier, WestRock, which found that even the dirtiest boxes resulted in no loss of strength in the recycled paper made from the containers, and most used pizza boxes don’t actually have much grease in them, averaging just 1-2% of the weight.

High Times In Berlin

Berlin’s public transport operator BVG has come up with a novel way of helping its customers through the chaos of Christmas commuting – an edible ticket infused with hemp oil to keep travelers calm throughout the season. The campaign is designed to encourage Berliners to take the bus or the underground during the stressful Christmas period and won a Gold award at this year’s Cannes Lions in the Travel/Leisure category.

“An edible ticket infused with hemp oil for a calm ride is a fun use of the printed material,” says Jens Waernes, Cannes Lions Jury Member and MD Creation Scholz & Friends Group. “To quote Hunter S Thompson, ‘Buy the ticket, take the ride’.”

Read more interesting articles like the above in the latest edition of The Page here!

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