It started as a middle school science fair project, but now one Pennsylvania 14 year-old says he knows how to save the government $370 million. All it has to do is make one simple change.
Last year, Suvir Mirchandani set out to discover how his school district could save money and conserve resources, through experimenting with different typefaces.
"What I propose is that the government switch the font that they're using for all their documents to a particular font called garamond."
"Isn't this genius? I mean it's not that much of a difference either." (Via WAVE)
International Business Times says Suvir looked at four different fonts: garamond, comic sans, Centhury gothic and times new roman. After weighing letters printed in those fonts, he discovered garamond used 24 percent less ink and would save his school district $21,000 annually.
Suvir was later encouraged by his teacher to work with the Journal of Emerging Investigators, or JEI, which is a publication for the work of middle school and high school students.
JEI urged Suvir to look at his project more broadly. Specifically, how he could save money for the federal government, which spends $1.8 billion on printing each year.
Using the same methods he employed for his science fair project, the Consumerist reports Suvir found the federal government would save $136 million a year on government documents, as well as another $234 million if the state governments started using the lighter and thinner typeface as well.
While the Government Print Office says Suvir's results are "remarkable," its public relations manager told CNN the office is currently working on shifting government content to the web to be more environmentally sustainable.
But Suvir, who sat down with the news outlet, says he's OK with the government going another route.
"My goal is to get a few individuals to change, which would personally save their ink costs. ... Right now I'm just working to spread the word."
Suvir's findings were published in JEI's March 2014 issue.
About the Author
