OUGD505 STUDIO BRIEF TWO - RESEARCH - ECO FRIENDLY TYPEFACES

I was just merrily going about making the publication as aesthetically pleasing but as efficient and clear as possible, when it occurred to me the typeface choices I have used, specifically Soleil for the body copy, really isn't that environmentally friendly as it's quite a bold, heavy weighted typeface and would therefore use a lot of ink when printed on a mass scale.

So, I did a bit of research into the most eco-friendly typefaces out there....

According to a BBC article, out of Garamond, Brush Script, Comic Sans, Helvetica, Courier, Times New Roman, Cooper Black and Impact, Garamond uses the least amount of ink, and Impact uses the most ink.

The more ink left in the pen, the less is needed to print the typeface.

Of course, this is only comparing specific typefaces, granted there is a good range to the choices in this experiment, but it'd be good to know what typeface is the most eco friendly in the world.
Although having seen this experiment, I know that Soleil is not very environmentally friendly, having an appearance between Helvetica and Impact. It would be interesting to see where FreightBig Pro would appear, as it has similar properties to Times New Roman and Garamond.

However, I also discovered whilst reading this article that there's a programme called EcoFont which you can download that puts 'holes' in the typeface so that when it prints it uses less ink but still looks good. The article also points out however, that although Garamond may use the least amount of ink in comparison, it's letter sizes are smaller compared to the rest, whilst still being at the size point size, which in turn makes it harder to read.

Ryman Eco is a typeface produced in conjunction with Monotype to be the 'world's most beautiful sustainable font', whilst still being functional and legible. And free, so the world can benefit. Ryman Eco claims to use 33% less ink than 'normal' typefaces such as Arial, Times New Roman, Georgia and Verdana. Ryman Eco uses ink bleeding when printed to it's advantage with the typeface being made of fine outlines rather than solid forms.

Ryman Eco typeface.

From what I can find, Ryman Eco is the most sustainable typeface there is, so I will give it a go and apply it to the guide to see it's effect.

Something to bear in mind is that typeface choices only really make a difference when it comes to cost of printing when something is printed on a really large scale, so for most cases it wouldn't make a difference to cost.