Teenager comes up with a way to save the US $400m. By changing fonts.

Did you hear that? It’s the sound of high-achieving, Ivy League-educated employees in consulting firms across the US saying one collective “D’oh”. Because there’s a 14-year-old school student who is doing their job for them. And better than them.

14-year-old Suvir Mirchandani has discovered – as part of a MIDDLE SCHOOL SCIENCE FAIR PROJECT – how to save the US government $US400 million. And the answer is this:

Switch from Times New Roman to Garamond.

Image via CNN Video.

While his classmates at Philadelphia’s Dorseyville Middle School were off making Coke and Mentos volcanoes, Mirchandani decided to investigate how his school could save the amount of ink they used on printed handouts. By printing out the most commonly typed letters on identical pieces of paper, and comparing the weight of the ink used, he determined that Garamond was the most environmentally friendly option for documents that had to be produced in hard copy.

Via CNN:

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.

But Mirchandani wasn’t just going to stop there. His findings were published in the Journal for Emerging Inventors, an academic journal especially for the work of gifted high school students, where they started to gain serious traction.

Mirchandani then repeated his experiment using government documents, to see if his thesis would hold true on a bigger scale.

Via CNN:

Using the General Services Administration’s estimated annual cost of ink — $467 million — Suvir concluded that if the federal government used Garamond exclusively it could save nearly 30% — or $136 million per year. An additional $234 million could be saved annually if state governments also jumped on board, he reported.

Gary Somerset, media and public relations manager at the Government Printing Office, describes Suvir’s work as “remarkable.” But he was noncommittal on whether the GPO would introduce changes to typeface, saying the GPO’s efforts to become more environmentally sustainable were focused on shifting content to the Web.

So, what have we learnt?

1. If you want to save printer ink, use Garamond.

2. If you wish to make a big, flashy, Jay Gatsby-esque statement, write and print your daily to-do lists in Size 24 Times New Roman.

3. If you work as anything other than a kindergarten teacher, do not use Comic Sans.

(That last one might not have come from this story. But, seriously. Don’t.)