04.05.14 Switch to Garamond Font?

After all the heavy stuff going on in my life lately, I thought something lighter would be fun.

Last week, CNN put Suvir Mirchandani on camera to talk about a study he conducted that found US federal and state governments could save $370 million per year on printing costs with a simple solution: switch the fonts used to print reports from the bulkier Times New Roman to the thinner Garamond.

Suvir Mirchandani is a 14-year-old in Pittsburgh who got concerned about sustainability after getting so many handouts in middle school. "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 science project on finding ways to cut down on the costly liquid.

Suvir measured how much ink and toner was used to print in a variety of typefaces, and found Garamond to be more efficient than the usual go-to, Time New Roman.

Are you currently using Times New Roman? I think of Arial as my go-to font, but my agreements are indeed in 10 point Times New Roman. But before you take the time to change all your rental agreements and printed documents to Garamond, be aware that experts in type have raised eyebrows.

Arguments include that legibility suffers – I think Garamond is a fussier font, and it font is actually 14% smaller at the same point-size compared to Times New Roman. Suvir also only included four typefaces in his study - Garamond, Times New Roman, Century Gothic and Comic Sans. So maybe Arial is better! Never mind that the whole study assumes the government prints all of its documents like someone's grandma printing out birthday cards on a cheap HP inkjet. Experts point out that the real way to save printing costs and reduce waste is to act like it is 2014 and print less documents.

Not always possible in the landlord industry, but worth pondering.