Write green

Write green

A Dutch creative agency has created a font with small circular holes, which it says uses 20 percent less ink.

January 8, 2009 1:49 by Aarti Nagraj

Here’s a great one for the eco-lovers. While efforts are constantly underway to reduce the usage of paper, trend-spotting site Springwise emphasises a Dutch creative agency, Spranq, which has brought out a new ‘Ecofont.’

The company says it carried out extensive testing to find out how much of a chatacter can be removed while maintaining readability. It finally found that the best results were achieved using a font in which tiny circles were intentionally left blank in the middle of each character. “After Dutch holey cheese, there now is a Dutch font with holes as well,” says Spranq, adding that the font, which is based on sans-serif Verdana, uses 20 percent less ink.

The font is free to download and use, and is available for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux.

The company is inviting developers to improve the Ecofont further under a free, open-source model, and Arabic and Hebrew versions are already under development, the company’s co-founder Gerjon Zomer told AP.

The UAE is the worst country in the world for its per capita environmental footprint, says a recent report produced by the World Wide Fund for Nature.

While using Ecofont will not dramatically change that, it’s a step in the eco-friendly direction. So are you ready to write green?