Free Ecofont reduces ink use by 20 percent

Paper waste is a common office culprit. Despite being a web geek who keeps nearly everything in the cloud, I admit to printing off more than I need to. I know that wastes paper, and the trees and those who love them hate me for it.

Paper would be pretty dull, however, if it weren’t for ink. We use lot of ink printing documents, and we often don’t think twice about it, especially at the office. But it takes a lot of materials, energy, and often toxic chemicals to produce an ink cartridge, not to mention the landfill waste once it’s tossed in the trash. Cutting down on ink use couldn’t hurt, then, could it?

The folks at Spranq, a Dutch communications firm, took a unique but simple approach to the ink conservation situation: how much of a letter can be removed while maintaining readability? Apparently punching little circles out of each letter is the answer, resulting in a font that uses up to 20 percent less ink.

Behold the Ecofont. It looks a touch funky when blown up, but when used at 10pt it is practically indistinguishable from Verdana, the popular office font upon which it was based.

So download a free copy of Ecofont, and give thanks to a simple design concept that will give you more blotch for the buck, and keeps cartridges out of the landfills a little longer.

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