Using a sustainably sourced and produced stock no longer means grey spotty paper, designer Stuart Geddes of Chase & Galley points out. As more clients set environmental standards, Geddes looks to the paper stock ranges that can offer his work something distinctive while maintaining great sustainable credentials. When choosing a cover stock for the Melbourne Design Guide, the range of textures in Tablex offered him an “unusual touch… to represent some of that diversity,” he says, in such a large compendium of information. The use of the Freckles texture, he says, seemed “a funny way of debunking the idea that the whole scene is something really cool and sleek”.

As a white, textured and coloured board range manufactured under the rigorous environmental standards of ISO14001, PEFC Chain of Custody and now available as carbon neutral, these qualities come at a low cost to our planet, and provide for Australian communities by being manufactured locally and distributed by Australian company KW Doggett. Although Geddes appreciates how “remarkably well” it prints, it is the range of colours and textures available that presents unique opportunities and attracts him to Tablex. Colours that are “ordinarily used for office stationery…you get coming through the print, which is really interesting to work with…distinctive and ordinary at the same time,” he muses.