By now you have probably heard that recycled paper and soy inks contribute to greener graphic design, but it turns out that in the realm of sustainability, all fonts are not equal. In their work, “Measuring Type,” Matt Robinson and Tom Wrigglesworth seek to evaluate the ink efficiency of popular fonts. Using ball-point pens to write the word “sample” in the style of Times New Roman, Helvetica and others, Robinson and Wrigglesworth were able to deduce just how much ink each font uses. So what can an eco-minded graphic designer learn? Use light, serif-based Garamond instead of bold and compact Impact.
