Dutch marketing and communications company Spranq has developed a typeface they claim can save up to 20 percent of ink costs by reducing the amount of ink used on a page.
Here's what it looks like:
the developers say:
The Ecofont is developed by SPRANQ, based on a hunch of Colin Willems. We tried lots of possible ink-saving-options. From extra thin letters to letters with outlines only. We have ommited various shapes: dashes, squares, triangles and even asterisks. In the end the circle was choosen as the best candidate for the job.
With the Ecofont SPRANQ hopes to increase environmental awareness too. Increasing customer awareness about printing behavior: is printing really necessary or (partly) a waste of ink and paper? We also hope to inspire software giants and printer manufacturers to innovate in an environmentally conscious manner.
The typeface is based on Verdana and can be freely downloaded from Ecofont Website
I'm interesting in knowing how much this actually saves.
(hat tip Pat McGrew)
Discussion
By Gail Nickel-Kailing on Dec 17, 2008
Adam,
I thought this was really cool until I tried converting a multi-page document to the new eco-font. At 11pt, which is what I currently use for Arial, the document actually "grew" in length because of the kerning/leading of the font. Probably adds about 20% to the length of the document.
So I save toner, but use paper... not good.
I tried changing the font size to 10pt and the leading was awful, scrunched the type all together.
Maybe I need to tweak my settings to use it properly, but right out of the chute, it is not intuitive...
Gail
By Barry Walsh on Dec 18, 2008
Just what we need. A company serving the graphics industry provoking questions like...
"is printing really necessary or (partly) a waste of ink and paper?".
Hats off to Gail for immediately determining that the ink/toner (2% of a job's cost) would be offset by an significant increase in paper usage (30%+ of a typical job's cost).
By David on Dec 18, 2008
This is akin to "environmental wacko" kind of stuff.
By Gordon Pritchard on Dec 18, 2008
The technique of punching holes into solid ink areas in order to reduce ink usage has been around, and used, for many years. The problem with building it into a graphic, like a font, is that the holes are scaled as the type size increases - not a good way to do it since the holes become visible whet the type size is increased. The best way to do it is to punch the holes in the graphics at the RIP - during screening. That way the hole size can be optimized to reduce ink while remaining invisible.
By Henk Gianotten on Dec 18, 2008
Tomorrow I will visit the designer and owner of the design studio in the Netherlands. I live some 20 kilometers from Spranq and will find out the basic idea of this font.
Some remarks:
1.: the font is not based on Verdana.
2.: there is no bold (in spite of their logo showing a bold version) nor an italic version available.
3.: they created a lot of publicity in national and international papers, radio, TV and internet. All referring to the "green printing" and environmental advantages.
Not bad for a small design outfit. A lot of people had never heard of Spranq. Look on google right now!
Gordon, I agree with you, screening with a fixed size of dots is far better, but it's an available solution. Doesn't seem innovative.
By Michae Jahn on Dec 18, 2008
In the Newspaper vertical - they are trying anything and everything to do what they did yesterday and stay in business while the economy tanks.
Before anyone discount a 2% overall cost savings - or a 20% ink savings - many papers pay $10,000 a month in ink - hust switching to a different "re-separation" method can save 2,000.00 a month - this is not only in ink savings, but faster makeready times, lower shipping cost (less ink means less water so your newspaper in lighter in weight).
The papers we talk to are doing many things - smaller height and width, lighter stock - using profiles set to maximum GCR.
Besides a "less ink, more color" offering - IQColour offers a different type of color image to black and white image conversion which accounts for the Helmholtz-Kohlrausch effect - we convert saturated colors 'differently' than Adobe Photoshop.
Newspapers are doing what they can and are willing to test any new ideas that point to savings.
So, hey, to a CFO - this font is genius.
By Adam Dewitz on Dec 19, 2008
@Henk the EcoFont FAQ states:
"The Ecofont is (also) intended for business purposes. In business environments the sans serif Verdana - on which the Ecofont is based - is often used."
By Henk Gianotten on Dec 19, 2008
As I told you yesterday, I visited Spranq in Utrecht (Holland) and had a long discussion with the designers of this Ecofont.
I appreciate their attempt to increase the awareness on ink and toner consumption.
The environment is getting more attention, by there press release and their Ecofont.
That's very positive, I think.
The 20% ink saving claim is however not correct. They save up to 20% on the coverage of the typeface due to the holes in each digital character. However, printed on a laser printer the total coverage of the characters is larger due to the tonal value increase. This is the same type of TVI as we experience in print. The TVI of the Ecofont depends on the type size. That's why you see the holes in a 24 point headline but don't see the white holes in a 10 point text. The TVI depends on the paper, toner, printer construction etc. So the savings are far less than 20% and depend on the printer/substrate combination. Seems that they are faced with the same problems as we do in conventional print.
The other problem is the fact that they have just one regular font based on Bitstreams Vera Sans (a Verdana look-alike). However it does not have the same metrics so one cannot replace a Verdana font in a file withe Ecofont Regular. A Bold and Italic version do not (yet) exist. Replacing Arial with Ecofont saves on toner, however not on paper. Arial in the same size needs less space.
Gordon already mentioned the screening of regular text. In conventional print (even better on a combination of CTP and conventional print) we can do that. Even better: we can sceen in non-periodical screening systems and still have an even text. In toner printers for cheap black and white applications, screening of text reduces the evenness of the print. So they had to tackle this problem in a different way. Holes in a character (compare it with the famous Gruyere cheese from Switzerland) are the Spranq solution.
Ecofont is a great PR-event. All our national and regional newspapers, magazines, TV and radio covered the introduction of this Ecofont.
Type ecofont in Google and you will find a lot of news and comments on this item.
For graphic arts applications, it's useless, in my opinion.
Lets concentrate on process improvements, waste control, print standards, lower alcohol fountain solution consumption and the application of GCR up to the maximum without loosing quality.
If one American web offset giant introduces a color server and applies Device Link Profiles to normalize (or optimize) all files, they will save far more ink than the total of printed copies with that tiny ink/toner saving in text.
Optimal GCR is the CMYK-printers at home and in all our offices would reduce the amount of color substantially. The clever solutions in file preparation to optimize the colr content, help far more than this kind of font-based solutions.
However, discussing GCR is not sexy. Even graphic arts magazines don't cover GCR-solutions until recently.
In my opinion, Spranq did an excellent job.
They got the coverage, they deserve. We have to show our end users that substantial savings of ink on paper are possible. Of course, such a solution is far more expensive than a free font! But the ROI is also far better.
By Ian Roberts on Dec 28, 2008
Surely placing any bold headline font in a percentage of a colour will save ink. Limiting the make up of colours to two colours only, will also insure an ink saving, if the neutral part of the colour is replaced with Black.
But I like the idea and must say its a great way to look at the eternal problem of ink savings.
By Michael Josefowicz on Dec 28, 2008
I would be curious if folks use stochastic screening as a way to save ink.
By Ty Sullivan on Dec 29, 2008
Absolutely NOT a good suggestion for printers to be concerned with environmental impact in regards to ink and paper...thats how they eat. Ink is going to a soy base and most papers are biodegradeable naturally. Paper is a natural, renewable resource that can be readily reused. Lets worry about things that are toxic and resource hogging instead of spending our energy on things that really DONT make much of an environmental impact when weighed against the livelihood of print workers and owners.
By Michael Josefowicz on Dec 30, 2008
You got that right!.
In fact paper companies tend to be the best tree farmers on the planet. And some serious people believe that the real culprit with carbon dioxide is not enough trees.
The issue for printers is using less ink because that makes business sense. Not because it's green.
Not sure about toner or ink jet however.
By Henk Gianotten on Jan 07, 2009
Ecofont (Spranq) expects that users of toner and ink jet based printers will reduce their ink and toner consumption. They focus on that segment. For regular printed matter (such as books, magazines and newspapers) other technologies are needed. Just one font, will not help those print producers.
By Bill Parker on Jan 07, 2009
The idea of removing pixels from the font is not a new idea. Back in 1992 I was working with a magnetographic digital printer and this was a common practise, but not to save toner, but to improve and control print quality and density.
I not believe that it is really viable to except the end user to change to this font. First of all I am sure that most people can no longer survive producing any output with one single font and the use of color will also negate any advantage.
What will happen is that vendors will develop products that incorporate features to make devices more economical and will not require the end user to made any special effort.
There are products out in the market place already that have a number of these features but the primary aim is quality and any economic saving are a side benefit.
Software is the most natural place to add features that help to render all fonts and all images in the more economical method while maintaining print quality. People are becoming more familiar with the concepts of setting and selecting print driver profiles, but in reality most people just accept the standard settings because they are happy to comprise the out versus time required to find the correct setting.
But it is a different situation for companies that use printed output for key communications with their customers, here quality is the most important factor.
By Henk Gianotten on Feb 06, 2009
Recently Ecofont was on the Dutch TV.
See: http://player.omroep.nl/?aflID=8831131&start=0:12:30.053
It's however in Dutch! Famous font designer Gerard Unger explained in the show that new type faces will do a better job. On TV he shows the USAToday typeset in the Couranto font (designed by Unger).
Today could reduced the page width and was even able to place more characters on a smaller page. The readability improved in spite of the smaller type size. It's amazing how much publicity Ecofonts got from TV and magazines.
Green fonts impress, nowadays.
Discussion
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