Save The Planet, Use Garamond
The next time you think to yourself that you’d like to do more for the environment, just remember to consider your font choices on future design projects. Matt Robinson and Tom Wriggelsworth (who has an awesome name) decided to draw out large scale type specimens of popular fonts to measure ink usage of each. They used the remaining ink in the ballpoint pens as their means of measurement. Expectedly, Impact scored low “green” marks while the comparatively lean Garamond and Courier were at the top of the class. More pictures of the process after the jump.
4 Footnotes
Scott Sullivan says:
May 26, 2010 at 1:15 pm
This is super awesome, but if you really wanna save the world with type you need a face that takes up less space and can be legible at a small size- Bell Gothic is my pick for these! Either that or Erik Spiekermann’s FF Mt (jk)
Jay B Sauceda says:
May 26, 2010 at 9:50 pm
If you REALLY want to save the world, you could use a face that knows how to effectively mop up oil in the Gulf Of Mexico while still being legible at a small point size… :)
Kirsti says:
July 17, 2010 at 7:46 pm
Great experiment! Don’t forget EcoFont (http://www.ecofont.eu/ecofont_en.html), which was designed to use 20% less ink and toner. It would be kind of hard to draw that one out with a ballpoint pen, though, as it’s full of tiny “holes” inside each letterform…!
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