Ecofont is the name of a

TrueType TrueType is an Computer font#Outline fonts, outline font standardization, standard developed by Apple Inc., Apple in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe Inc., Adobe's PostScript fonts#Type 1, Type 1 fonts used in PostScript. It has become the ...

font family, an application program for

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

, and a

Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...

business firm. Ecofont Vera Sans (originally called Eco Sans) was developed by SPRANQ in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

in order to reduce ink consumption when printing. Each character in the font contains tiny holes. SPRANQ claims that this reduces the amount of ink needed by approximately 15 percent when compared to the Vera Sans family on which Ecofont Sans is based. The Ecofont

application program Application software is any computer program that is intended for end-user use not operating, administering or programming the computer. An application (app, application program, software application) is any program that can be categorized as ...

(formerly marketed as "Ecofont Professional") inserts small holes in other fonts in order to reduce ink consumption. Both the software and the Ecofont Sans fonts are distributed and sold by Ecofont BV, based in

Utrecht Utrecht ( ; ; ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city of the Netherlands, as well as the capital and the most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Utrecht (province), Utrecht. The ...

History

Ecofont Vera Sans was originally designed as an ink saving alternative to the

Verdana Verdana is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter for Microsoft Corporation, with hand- hinting done by Thomas Rickner, then at Monotype. Demand for such a typeface was recognized by Virginia Howlett of Microsoft's typogra ...

typeface. Ecofont Vera Sans saved 20% more ink when compared to Bitstream Vera Sans in a 2010 test. However, both

sans-serif In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif (), gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than ...

fonts used more ink than most typical

serif In typography, a serif () is a small line or stroke regularly attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter or symbol within a particular font or family of fonts. A typeface or "font family" making use of serifs is called a serif typeface ( ...

fonts. In 2011, Ecofont claimed that a reproducible test comparing Arial with Ecofont Arial showed ink savings of 28%. A comparison of printing with different fonts until the ink ran out found that Ecofont Vera was similar to

Century Gothic Century Gothic is a digital sans-serif typeface in the geometric style, released by Monotype Imaging in 1990. It is a redrawn version of Monotype's own Twentieth Century, a copy of Bauer's Futura, to match the widths of ITC Avant Garde Gothic ...

and less economical than

Times New Roman Times New Roman is a serif typeface commissioned for use by the British newspaper ''The Times'' in 1931. It has become one of the most popular typefaces of all time and is installed on most personal computers. The typeface was conceived by Stanl ...

Garamond Garamond is a group of many serif typefaces, named for sixteenth-century Parisian engraver Claude Garamond, generally spelled as Garamont in his lifetime. Garamond-style typefaces are popular to this day and often used for book printing and bod ...

was significantly more economical, though it also sets smaller than other fonts at the same nominal point size.

Awards

The Eco Sans font received the European Environmental Design Award 2010 from DiMAD in Spain. Ecofont received the Accenture Innovation Award 2011 in the category Consumer Products, the Sprout Challenger Award in 2012 and the SMEs Innovation Top 100 in 2013.

Other fonts designed for economy

Another font designed for ink economy using the same "hollow letter" concept is Ryman Eco.

References

External links

* {{official website, http://www.ecofont.com/ Display typefaces Printing and the environment Sans-serif typefaces Typefaces and fonts introduced in 2009