New Font Uses Holes To Cut Ink Use 540
An anonymous reader writes "A Dutch company has taken an open source Sans Serif font and
added holes to it to try and save on printer ink costs. The Ecofont is claimed to save up to 20 percent of ink costs, but it allegedly took the firm a while to perfect the ratio of the maximum number of holes possible without sacrificing readability."
Horrible (Score:5, Insightful)
At big sizes the holes make it look horrible. At small sizes it's not all that readable as far as fonts go.
You might as well print at 80% grey instead of black to get the same savings and have it look better.
Re:What a fucking stupid idea! (Score:4, Insightful)
Tell you what, when you can come up with a better way to save 20% of the ink used on a printed document, then you can say it's stupid. Until then, I think it's a cleverly simple idea.
Re:What a fucking stupid idea! (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a way to save 100%. Don't print it!
Re:Practicality? (Score:2, Insightful)
On screen this is probably going to be more headache than its worth.
On screen it isn't worth anything. But really, this is obviously a gimmick with little to no benefit. Much like Blackle.
Re:Horrible (Score:5, Insightful)
From the website:
View the Ecofont
In the picture you can see how the Ecofont is created by omitting parts of the letter. At the shown size, this obviously is not very nice, but at a regular font size it is actually very usable.
It must look pretty horrible at smaller sizes too otherwise I think they might have shown us a sample, no?
If they'd constructed it out of Sierpinski gasket they would have saved a lot more!
Nice bit of viral marketing for Spranq methinks.
Re:This is pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
Yea, Light is so last century. It's all about the Eco now.
Re:This is pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
What I meant is, they seem to have modified a screen font. If you are trying to save toner/ink, I would think that choosing a printed font would be more effective.
I know that you CAN print a sans-serif font, but I thought that the rule of thumb was that serif fonts should be used for print.
That said, I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about - thus why I asked the question :)
Re:Holy Illegible Font, Batman! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Practicality? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ahhh... so, bonus points for @media print{body{font-family:Spranq Eco Sans;}}?
Re:Horrible (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not supposed to look good on screen. It is to save ink when printing.
I agree many things don't need to be printed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What a fucking stupid idea! (Score:3, Insightful)
As far as a company is concerned - the ink is a bigger problem. It costs a whole lot more.
Re:What a fucking stupid idea! (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, everyone gets all up in arms about using paper. Do none of you realize that paper [wikipedia.org] is a renewable resource [wikipedia.org]?
Re:What a fucking stupid idea! (Score:3, Insightful)
Most paper will be readable in 30 years. Will your digital documents?
Microsoft Word dropped support for old document formats fairly recently, so even if you've still got a medium which is readable (cdroms in 30 years? Probably not...) you've got to worry about the file format.
Re:What a fucking stupid idea! (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a much better one, change the quality settings in the printing dialog. There you have it ..
I doubt it will be less readable than that crap and it will also work for all fonts and images and so on ..
Re:What a fucking stupid idea! (Score:3, Insightful)
Yah. It's renewable. But we're using it at a faster pace than it can be renewed. Wood fibre in general... it's not *just* paper that's causing problems, mind you... the construction industry is using an awful lot of wood, too. But we *do* need to reduce our consumption of wood, and it's a lot easier to reduce the amount of paper you consume than it is the amount of wood the housing industry consumes. Every little bit helps.
Why it works, and why other ways are better. (Score:4, Insightful)
It works via dot gain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot_gain), where ink tends to spread on paper. This happens with both inkjet and offset presses.
This would be much better implemented as part of the pre-press process of the publisher. The publisher could select all headlines, and apply a "holes" pattern much more specific to their press and their ink levels.
Re:What a fucking stupid idea! (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know for you but for me 99.9% of the paper I consumed won't be readable in a year, because I will have thrown it away.
Text-files? I'm sure they will.
PDF? No idea.
Re:What a fucking stupid idea! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What a fucking stupid idea! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I agree many things don't need to be printed (Score:3, Insightful)
u cn save ink n papr 2 !
What?
Re:What a fucking stupid idea! (Score:5, Insightful)
They're a marcomms company: this is a stunt (Score:5, Insightful)
Sigh. As the various outraged typographers here attest, this is a self-promotional stunt and has nothing to do with innovation or even typography. The clue is the first line of TFA:
"Dutch marketing and communications company Spranq has come up with a novel and free way of slashing printer ink costs by developing a font with holes in it."
I work for a marcomms agency as well. This is how such agencies get clients: you pull stunts like this to make yourselves look like gurus in some way, so when you go in for pitches you have lots of press clippings (clients don't read them, they just look at where they were published) so you have some kind of differentiation over your rivals. I worked for a place where we made a big fanfare about recruiting an "artist in residence" (and got lots of press) - others in our space have launched "labs" or various kinds, etc. etc.
There's no substance in any of it. It's all just a marketing con-job and sad to say Slashdot has fallen for it (not that a marcomms agency's clients would be interested in a /. story anyway).
Ah, the irony (Score:3, Insightful)
Clearly this is one of those "let's-get-some-free-press" stories. How much extra ink will be used printing this story on page D-5 of every local newspaper's wacky news section?
Re:What a fucking stupid idea! (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, as people have pointed out before, this is just a lame marketing trick from an unknown ad company, since you can just use any thinner font and get the same readability with even less ink.
For the marketing trick to work, of course they need to spam their name.
As a former type designer (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Practicality? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, looks like complete and utter crap.
And I say that as someone who encourages people to print in the most severe toner-saving mode their printer has; as someone who duplexes everything, often 4-up per side; someone who considers a 9pt font shamelessly wasteful for anything but a presentation-quality final result.
I also say it as someone who doesn't get all elitist about fonts (I happen to like Comic Sans, ThankYouVeryMuch), as long as they don't hurt to read.
And Spranq Eco Sans hurts to read. At large sizes, it looks like a billboard with all the lights out, and at small sizes it looks like someone ran it through the shredder and taped it back together. Just way too visually distracting to even consider.
Re:What a fucking stupid idea! (Score:0, Insightful)
In our University, printing used to be free until 2 years ago. Since the university started charging 3 cents per printout, the total number of printouts taken in computer labs has gone down by 70%. Perhaps your univ should try that out as well.
That's fair, but only as long as professors are required to take every assignment in a digital form. The moment there's a class that requires a printed copy of a report, that printing better be included with the price for taking the class.
Re:What a fucking stupid idea! (Score:3, Insightful)
Even evaluating different brightness values of the paper you buy will increase contrast and likely lower your acceptable black level for increased savings.
Re:What a fucking stupid idea! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What a fucking stupid idea! (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, the idea that everything required for the class should be included in the price of the class is ridiculous. Books aren't included. Neither are pens, paper, or laptops.
Second, what difference does it make whether you pay for your printing at the printer or in your tuition? Theoretically speaking, if nobody abused their printing privileges, the cost would average out and the cost to you would be the same either way.
However, if charging three cents at the printer reduces abuse, then you, as a student, actually save money. Even if you're one of the students that's abusing your printing privileges, you'd still save money because you don't have to pay for all the other students that are abusing their privileges. Putting all the cost in the tuition causes the tragedy of the commons. [wikipedia.org]
My college actually charged nine cents per page; it was really no big deal. Although I'm curious if the GP meant three cents per page, or three cents per job. If it's per page, the 70% drop doesn't surprise me too much, but if it's per job, then that's pretty amazing.
Re:Practicality? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What a fucking stupid idea! (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod parent interesting, insightful, and informative.
It seems counter-intuitive, but if we stopped using wood completely, then forested land would no longer be profitable! If that happened, people would just replace the forested land with something that is profitable, like housing developments or farms.
I agree that deforestation is a big problem, particularly in third-world countries, but reducing paper use could reduce reforestation, which would cause more harm than good.
I think it's more important that we focus on passing laws to protect natural habitats; when forced to, logging companies have no problems making the most with the land they own.
Re:What a fucking stupid idea! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What a fucking stupid idea! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What a fucking stupid idea! (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm curious if the GP meant three cents per page, or three cents per job. If it's per page, the 70% drop doesn't surprise me too much, but if it's per job, then that's pretty amazing.
The cost is 3c/page. Its not surprising at all. Just the fact that printing out a Dilbert cartoon to put on their corkboard would now cost them money, keeps people from printing things that aren't essential.
Re:What a fucking stupid idea! (Score:2, Insightful)
...forestation rates have been on the rise in North America for over 100 years.
What about the rates over the last 200 years? 100 years ago was shortly after the railroads deforested the nation, was it not?
Re:Inkjet business = New Microsoft monopoly (Score:4, Insightful)
Guess what: EVERYTHING you buy costs a fraction of its price to manufacture. If you don't like the price of inkjet printer cartridges, you are free to not buy inkjet printers. Printer manufacturers have found that people prefer buying cheap printers to buying expensive printers with cheap cartridges.
If you don't like the price of inkjet cartridges, you are more than welcome to buy laser printers, all of which are far cheaper to operate than inkjets. You can buy a laser printer for 50 bucks these days. Just stop whining and demanding government handouts, it's getting a little out of hand.
Publicity Stunt (Score:2, Insightful)
And a remarkably stupid one, though I guess it did get them some attention.
These people don't understand the GPL. (Score:3, Insightful)
So didn't anyone read the license?
That's the best part:
In the Ecofont the following regulation is enclosed:
Copyright (C) 2008 SPRANQ creative communications, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
All right reserved. Ecofont is a trademark of SPRANQ creative communications.
The inventive designing method of the Ecofont - ommitting spaces in each letter to decrease the
black surface of the letter and thus save ink by printing - is intellectual property of SPRANQ creative
communications. Imitation of this technique is prohibited.
The Ecofont is distributed under GPL and based upon Bitstream Vera. The following licence
paragraph applies...
And then after the Bitstream Vera requirements...
To protect the purity of the Ecofont and its communication, the further development of the Ecofont
and the use of its technique - which includes omitting different shapes in the letters or the use in
other font types - is only allowed if permission is granted by SPRANQ. A signed licence agreement
can only be obtained by contacting SPRANQ (www.spranq.eu). SPRANQ is not obliged to grant
permission. Selling the Ecofont or a variation of it to make a profit is strictly prohibited.
I do not believe these people understand the GPL. Don't use this font, it's incorrectly licensed.