Given that Bibles have typically used a lot of paper, it is not so surprising that it was HarperCollins’s Christian publishing division, Zondervan Bibles, that figured out back in 2015 how to use design to save paper – and incidentally cut printing costs. 

Working with different fonts and adjusted the page layout, they developed a new compact typeface called the NIV Comfort Print that saved more than 350 pages per bible. In 2017, it saved 100 million pages in total – equivalent to four times the height of the Empire State Building.

The Zondervan epiphany sparked a wider effort to save paper at one of the world’s four biggest publishing houses.

Tracey Menzies, the vice-president of creative operations and production for HarperCollins, wanted to see if the lessons could be applied to other kinds of books, including novels and nonfiction.

“When we first started thinking about this, it was a bit of an upheaval,” she told Fast Company. “You’re taking something that people have done for their entire careers and telling them to think about it in an entirely new way.”

Her team tested their theories using one of the 600 page books in their catalog by creating 50 versions using different fonts, and observed that some fonts were more compact, resulting in fewer total pages, while remaining easy to read. They curated a list of 15 fonts they determined are the most eco-friendly, which will be the preferred fonts from now on.

Clever font selection, coupled with a layout design that reduced white space, resulted in more words per page. In one example, the same text set to Garamond Pro resulted in many more words on the page compared to Bembo. Both fonts are fairly similar, and placed side by side, differences are imperceptible. “The goal is to make these changes without the reader even seeing the difference,” says Menzies.

So far, these subtle, imperceptible tweaks have saved 245.6 million pages, equivalent to 5,618 trees.

There is complex math involved with cutting pages from books. Printers produce very large sheets, which are then cut and folded into what ultimately becomes segments of 16 pages. When trying to cut pages from the book, designers need to be able to remove multiples of 16 pages.

But good design allowed them to cut pages without the reader noticing at all. “When we experimented with these fonts, we realized they weren’t a limitation at all,” Menzies says. “It was simply a different approach that didn’t sacrifice aesthetics. Now, our designers are constantly questioning how we do things and thinking about ways to make things more sustainable.”

Happy Earth Day!

Source:

HarperCollins made a tiny tweak to its book design – and has saved thousands of trees as a result. Fast Company, Apr. 2 2024