One of the main deficiencies of ink jet printing technology has been the lack of outdoor weatherability of ink-substrate systems. The development of pigmented inks has greatly improved the UV stability of these systems. However, the lack of water resistance has continued to be problematic. Most commercially available ink jet printable coatings have water-soluble binder resins, such as poly(vinyl alcohol) or poly(vinyl pyrrolidone). Even when crosslinked, these highly hydrophilic polymers are still swelled to some degree.A discussion of a different approach to the development of ink jet printable coatings is given here. Only waterinsoluble binder resins are employed in this development. Highly absorbent white pigments are used to give the coating a capacity for ink absorption. The surface energy of the binder resin is used to control the dot spread. When printed with the pigmented “outdoor” inks of Brady ColorPix™ wide format printers this line of ink jet media has an outdoor durability of approximately two years without overlamination.