Paperchains

Phone books seem to be essential. I’m not so sure that they are, but I guess a lot of people like to riffle through pages of paper to find information. They’re big books, updated each year, and presumably costly to print and ship.

You’d think anything that could reduce the amount of unnecessary paper would also reduce the whole cost of production and shipping. And you’d think that would be a good thing.

Rowan Simpson wrote about how the New Zealand Telecom Directories didn’t take up a small font change that would have saved a lot of money. Here’s what Rowan writes:

One of the examples [Kris Sowersby] showed was a font he designed for a pitch to Telecom Directories (back in the day before this part of the business was sold).

He came up with a bunch of simple design changes to improve readability and make the millions of bulky directories they print each year more efficient to produce (i.e. less paper, less ink, etc).

… it was designed to make better use of the space.  In fact, it was estimated that they would be able to save between 8% - 15% on every page …

Imagine the total saving that could have been achieved in time by making this simple small change. You’ll have to, because they didn’t go for it.

[Via Rowan Simpson: Little things.]

It’s an idea though: if you’re in the business of producing books, magazines, leaflets or newspapers, is there some small thing you could do that would make a big difference? A change in font or design could be worth your while.

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