Use Ecofont to save your printer ink
Of all of the ways people have tried to cut down on printer costs and printer waste, creating a new font doesn’t seem like enough. But according to a Dutch “creative communication company”, in order to cut down on ink, you have to cut down the fonts.
Spranq, located in Utrecht, The Netherlands, developed the Ecofont to cut down on ink costs and printer waste. The designers decided to experiment with different fonts and methods of reducing them so that less ink was used to print readable fonts. As the company says,”After Dutch holey cheese, there now is a Dutch font with holes as well.”
The holes (easier to see in larger fonts) don’t reduce the legibility of the letters while cutting down on the letter content. The smaller the font, the less likely the holes will be noticeable. On the other hand, the larger the font the more ink savings.
According to the Ecofont Web site, this font uses 20 percent less ink. The company came to the 20 percent estimate “based on research with software that compared the average black surface of the letters/signs of the Ecofont to that of the source font Bitstream Vera.”
Of course, there are always disclaimers such as the actual savings will vary depending on the age and type of printer and on the paper choice and “tonal value increase”. Tonal value increase simply means that the smaller the print the less ink saved. The font was intended to be used at font size 9 or 10.
The free version of the Ecofont is based on the sans serif Verdana font. There is also a Ecofont Professional that allows businesses to work in their corporate typeface but print in Ecofont. So you can type in Arial or Times Roman and print in holey versions of those fonts. This solution requires the following:
The 9 steps towards using Ecofont Professional:
1. Interview – Discussing your particular situation
2. Analysis – Reviewing your systems and configuration
3. Quotation – Implementation proposal including POA and cost outline
4. Ecoversion – Ecofont version of your typeface incl. savings report
5. Installation -Installation of the print software and you own Ecofont
6. Testing – The Ecoprint module is tested intensively
7. Launch – Ecofont Professional is now operational
8. Instructions – Tell your employees how (easy) it works
9. Communication – Tell others and work on your green image
Spanq believes that using Ecofont Professional will lead to ink savings, along with spurring employees on to further green initiatives. How this would happen is rather unclear. How many employees really notice or care whether the particular font used is saving ink? Probably not many.
Ecofont is the type of tweak to every day technology that you don’t even realize could save money, still look good, and save the environment by cutting down on waste destined for your nearest landfill. Although businesses might not be all that eager to invest in Ecofont Professional, if concrete monetary savings could be easily calculated it could provide ample justification for large companies like say Coca Cola, IBM, or Nestle to invest in the process and font.
Why not download the free version and test it in house with internal memos and see if, one you can see any difference in print quality, and two if you notice and savings in ink? What have you got to lose?
Related Posts:
