Ecofont – Less is More

Reading National Geographic is almost always rewarding for me. The other day was leafing through one in a coffee shop and read an article on Ecofont. A Dutch company called SPRANQ came up with the idea of creating an environmentally friendly font. If you want to try it, download it here – it’s free.

Ecofont has as much of each letter removed as possible, while maintaining readability. The font is full of holes, which means less toner is required when it comes time to print. The amount of ink saved the size of the font, but it can use up to 20 % less ink.

Less is more – Ecofont’s tag line - could be taken in many ways. Some offices/employees/people are so wasteful with printing. Making an effort to only print what you really need could save ink and paper at the same time – lots of ink and paper. Print quality and colour (or lack thereof) makes a big difference. Setting your printer’s default settings to black and white with lesser quality is a good idea. That way if you forget and hit print in a hurry, you won’t get a colourful surprise. If you really need good quality printing for your work, then you’ll be checking the settings anyway and can change to a higher quality.

That said, printing does happen, even if you are mindful to print only what you need too*. Why not try Ecofont? They even have a version for businesses.

Random thought**: SPRANQ sounds a bit like someone new to English trying to say thank you***.

*if you print this blog post, you are an asshole.
**I am an asshole.
***if you laughed at that, you are an asshole.