31 March 2014

The US Government Can Save Up To $400M A Year Just By Changing The Font It Uses

[Click here to view the video in this article]







From Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, 14-year-old Suvir Mirchandani’s science fair project has discovered that the US Government could save nearly $400 million dollars a year if they just switched the font on all their documents.



He proposes that instead of standard Times New Roman, all government documents be printed in Garamond instead.



Mirchandani’s research began when he was a sixth-grader at Dorseyville Middle School, where he realized that he was getting a lot of paper handouts from his teachers.



Taking a new approach, he applied computer science to the problem of environmental sustainability. His aim was to cut waste and save money for his school.



However, instead of focusing on reducing paper, he focused on reducing ink.



“Ink is two times more expensive than French perfume by volume," says Mirchandani.



Through his methodology, he printed four different typefaces on cardstock paper and graphed the ink usage. His discovery found that Garamond, with its thinner strokes, his school district could reduce ink consumption by 24%, saving up to $21,000 annually.



Many steps later, he eventually applied the project to a larger scale: the federal government.



Mirchandani remains hopeful of the government adopting his plan. He says, “I recognize it's difficult to change someone's behavior. That's the most difficult part. I definitely would love to see some actual changes and I'd be happy to go as far as possible to make that change possible."



Watch his interview with CNN below:











[via CNN.com]