Changing the standard typeface used by federal and state governments could save the United States roughly $370 million a year in ink costs, according to a peer-reviewed study by Suvir Mirchandani. The best part of the story? Mirchandani is just 14 years old.
It all started when Mirchandani, a student at Dorseyville Middle School near Pittsburgh, Pa., noticed that he was getting a lot more printed handouts in class than he used to in elementary school. He wondered how wasteful it was, and then discovered just how expensive ink is. At up to $75 an ounce, he points out, it's twice as expensive as Chanel No. 5 perfume.
Using software called APFill Ink Coverage, he calculated how much ink was used in four representative fonts Century Gothic, Comic Sans, Garamond and the default choice of most word processors, Times New Roman.
The ink-preserving winner: Garamond. The ink-preserving winner: Garamond.
Changing Times New Roman to Garamond on all handouts, Mirchandani calculated, would save his school district $21,000 a year. But he didn't stop there. Encouraged by teachers, he applied his calculations to the U.S. government's ink budget, which runs to $467 million a year.
In a paper published in the Journal for Emerging Investigators, Mirchandani lays out how switching to Garamond would save the government $136 million a year on ink alone. If you add up all the publications produced by U.S., the annual savings rise to $370 million.
No word yet on whether any agencies are planning to implement Mirchandani's plan, but CNN reports that Gary Somerset, media manager at the Government Printing Office, calls the teenager's work "remarkable."
Of course, even the federal government's massive printing budget is dwarfed by the amount spent on home and office printing around the world. So think before you use Times New Roman again; going Garamond might just make a difference to your bottom line, too.
0 comments:
Post a Comment