“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.
