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Old 03-28-2014, 05:58 PM   #1
Hugh Wyn Griffith
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Default Teen shows: Change your typeface, save millions

From CNN tonight

Teen to government: Change your typeface, save millions

[ ... ]

Quote:

"Ink is two times more expensive than French perfume by volume," Suvir says with a chuckle.

He's right: Chanel No. 5 perfume costs $38 per ounce, while the equivalent amount of Hewlett-Packard printer ink can cost up to $75.

So Suvir decided to focus his project on finding ways to cut down on the costly liquid.

Collecting random samples of teachers' handouts, Suvir concentrated on the most commonly used characters (e, t, a, o and r).

First, he charted how often each character was used in four different typefaces: Garamond, Times New Roman, Century Gothic and Comic Sans. Then he measured how much ink was used for each letter, using a commercial tool called APFill® Ink Coverage Software.

Next he enlarged the letters, printed them and cut them out on cardstock paper to weigh them to verify his findings. He did three trials for each letter, graphing the ink usage for each font.

From this analysis, Suvir figured out that by using Garamond with its thinner strokes, his school district could reduce its ink consumption by 24%, and in turn save as much as $21,000 annually.
>>

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Old 03-28-2014, 06:55 PM   #2
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Oh please! '-}}

If they used a laserjet instead of an inkjet, they could probably save millions of Francs/Euros not matter which font they were using...

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Old 03-31-2014, 05:49 PM   #3
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Phinney puts it near the beginning

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That said, it is great that a middle school kid is doing creative problem solving and applying scientific thinking!

   
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Old 03-28-2014, 08:51 PM   #4
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By coincidence, Thomas Phinney points out the errors in such thinking in a blog posting today: http://www.thomasphinney.com/2014/03/saving-400m-font/
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Old 03-29-2014, 01:15 PM   #5
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gerry: Thomas Phinney points out the errors in such thinking in a blog posting today:
Must be a really popular post because I get an error message that the bandwidth has been exceeded...I'll try it again later...

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Old 03-30-2014, 09:55 AM   #6
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A reply I tried to post yesterday disappeared into the ether, I guess, but my thoughts were about the same as Thomas's, without the math. Garamond (any flavor) and some similar types look smaller and lighter than other types at the same point size because they are smaller and lighter. Accordingly, many readers perceive them as hard to read, and to achieve equal readability they have to be set larger.

It happens that synagogues I've attended have used two prayer books set in Garamond: Stempel in the 1970s and Adobe in this century. People who attend services are, on average, somewhat older than the population in general, and the type in these is deservedly unpopular no matter how beautiful it is. (A rival denomination uses Melior, which is just plain irritating.) My experience is that the bifocal brigade (of which I am a member) wants type to be as big and as black as possible.
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Old 03-30-2014, 11:41 AM   #7
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I can't help but think of that curious odor that duplicated handouts had when I went to high school, and how a few of us could not help but take a whiff of the paper. So now, I can't help but imagine the reaction students would have to hand-outs printed with Chanel No. 5.

   
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Old 03-30-2014, 03:36 PM   #8
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If something is printed with Chanel No.5, instead of reading aloud you would have to be smelling aloud. I'd expect a comma and full stop to be kind of hard to tell, sorry, smell apart. I think ink is a better option after all.

   
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Old 03-31-2014, 01:20 AM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew B. View Post
I can't help but think of that curious odor that duplicated handouts had when I went to high school, and how a few of us could not help but take a whiff of the paper. So now, I can't help but imagine the reaction students would have to hand-outs printed with Chanel No. 5.
Were they the spirit duplicators (metho) or the gestetner machines (ink)?

The correction fluid for the gestetner pages had alcohol in it too, from memory, so it had its own smell.

How sensory deprived young people are these days...

   
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Old 03-31-2014, 08:27 AM   #10
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We had both, but the powerful aroma came from the mimeograph ink (Gestetner was a brand name). Children perceive the odors of VOCs more powerfully than do adults, I think.

My last encounter with mimeo ink was in 1998-99 when I worked at a school that had a Risograph: a machine that made a mimeo stencil by scanning the original. It was automated enough to install the stencil on its own and remove it when the next page was scanned, so no one had to handle the inky stencils unless it jammed. It also ran very fast once it had installed the stencil; sometimes it shot the output pages clear across the room.


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Were they the spirit duplicators (metho) or the gestetner machines (ink)?

The correction fluid for the gestetner pages had alcohol in it too, from memory, so it had its own smell.

How sensory deprived young people are these days...
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