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There's a huge number of visitors today (28-5) from them Twitterspheres, apparently.
Hello sheeple! I just want to say: don't take my word on any of this, I'm just some
guy on the internets. You wouldn't blindly believe some guy on the internets now
would you? Run some tests for yourself, check my findings — if I appear to
be correct, then spread the word. I didn't include the script for nothing.
[ end special interlude ]
Ecofont is a font by a company called Spranq. It's basically just Bitstream Vera
Sans with holes punched in it:
Spranq says: “A good idea is always simple: how much of a letter can be removed
while maintaining the readability? After extensive testing with all kinds of shapes
the best results were achieved by using small circles. Lots of late hours (and coffee)
later have resulted in a font that uses up to 20% less ink.”
Sounds good, but “up to 20%”?
The disclaimer states “Although the information about the Ecofont provided by SPRANQ on the website and in the press report is derived from thorough internal research and reliable external sources, SPRANQ can not vouch for the accuracy and completeness of the provided information. All provided information is strictly indicational and can be altered by SPRANQ without notice at any time.”
I decided to do my own research using ImageMagick (included in the Cygwin distribution). I used some Windows fonts, some by Adobe, Exljbris, and others. With this little script I created black & white bitmap images of text, 12pt size letters at 1200dpi (like this). The total amount of black pixels in the image represents the amount of ink used when printing with that font. Admittedly this is not a 100% scientific & foolproof method, but it should provide fairly accurate estimates.
The results (the numbers are percentage of ink saved when using the ecofont instead):
| Sans serif fonts | |
| Verdana | 21,5 |
| Bitstream Vera | 19,8 |
| Tahoma | 17,6 |
| Arial | 12,0 |
| Fontin Sans | -2,5 |
| Myriad | -7,8 |
| Candara | -8,4 |
| Calibri | -11,9 |
| Corbel | -13,0 |
| Latin Modern Sans | -18,5 |
| Delicious | -20,7 |
| Serif fonts | |
| Utopia | 2,7 |
| Georgia | 1,0 |
| Fontin | -1,1 |
| Constantia | -5,7 |
| Palatino | -10,7 |
| Liberation Serif | -16,6 |
| Gentium | -17,1 |
| Times | -19,6 |
| Minion | -24,3 |
| Libertine | -25,2 |
| Caslon | -28,8 |
| Arno | -31,4 |
| Garamond | -32,5 |
So, compared to Tahoma/Verdana and Vera you will save about 20% ink. But if you usually print with a serif font (which you should, really) you'll end up using 10–30% more ink.
But that's not all — the ecofont is pretty wide. I compared the total width of all generated images for an indication of the paper usage (numbers are percentage width saved when using ecofont):
| Sans serif fonts | |
| Verdana | 0,3 |
| Bitstream Vera | 0,0 |
| Tahoma | -12,0 |
| Arial | -12,3 |
| Fontin Sans | -12,5 |
| Latin Modern Sans | -16,0 |
| Candara | -16,6 |
| Myriad | -17,9 |
| Corbel | -18,8 |
| Delicious | -19,6 |
| Calibri | -19,7 |
| Serif fonts | |
| Utopia | -10,3 |
| Fontin | -10,7 |
| Palatino | -12,4 |
| Constantia | -14,6 |
| Gentium | -18,6 |
| Caslon | -19,5 |
| Liberation Serif | -20,0 |
| Times | -20,1 |
| Minion | -20,2 |
| Libertine | -21,2 |
| Garamond | -22,7 |
| Arno | -25,6 |
So apart from the fact that it's rather likely that using the ecofont will lead to an increased ink usage, you almost certainly will be using more paper. Which is not quite eco-friendly.
This font is either a naive — but failed — attempt at changing the
world for the better, or a very clever marketing ploy to get thousands of
eyeballs to the Spranq website. The “up to 20%” is only factual thanks
to up to, and the disclaimer does some good ass-covering.
Anyway, do not use it to help the environment because you won't be helping.
You'll save ink by printing with a serif font instead of sans-serif, but not with this font.
You could use it just for the looks, but you might give other people bad ideas.
I also doubt the claimed legibility is any decent because of the light colour, but I haven't checked because that'd be a waste of paper and ink.
[ update ]
There's “Ecofont Professional” now, which perforates any font of your choice.
It still is a marketing gimmick as printing in economy mode will probably
get you the same result, and I guess you'll see this used mostly in full-page full-color
print, but it's kinda neat. It draws attention as to why there are holes in it
while actually saving ink on the text, as opposed to the original
“Ecofont Free”. Which you —still— should not use because
using screen fonts in print is bad, hm'kay?