HarperCollins is saving thousands of trees by a small change in their book design

Few readers realize the extensive effort and detail that go into the design of a book. There is an entire team of people taking care of every font style, page quality, space between paragraphs and the overall experience of the book. HarperCollins, one of the leading publishers in the world, also focuses greatly on designing the books in a way that offers a great reading experience. Recognizing the impacts of global warming, HarperCollins devised an eco-friendly approach to publishing, as reported by Fast Company.

According to Leah Carlson-Stanisic, the associate director of design at HarperCollins, reading involves "30% experience and 70% intuition." The publisher always takes great care while choosing the fonts and layouts that resonate with the content, aiming to give their readers a matchless experience. However, for the past three years, the designers of HarperCollins have been steering towards the goal of saving paper, thus saving trees. The innovative concept of tweaking fonts and layouts to save paper originated from the publisher's Christian division, Zondervan Bibles. Their trial run for this idea started in 2015 when Zondervan's designers not only adjusted the size of fonts and page layout but also created a new compact typeface called the NIV Comfort Print. As a result, 350 pages were saved in every bible and up to 100 million pages by 2017.

The publisher was enthusiastic about the results of the Zondervan Bibles and decided to incorporate the idea into other books like novels and non-fiction. Tracey Menzies, the publishing company's VP of creative operations and production, said, "When we first started thinking about this, it was a bit of an upheaval. You're taking something that people have done for their entire careers and telling them to think about it in an entirely new way." To test it, the design team developed 50 versions of one of their largest books, which had 600 pages using different fonts. Their experiment showed that some off-the-shelf fonts were effective in saving papers but also didn't compromise the readability of the book.

After multiple tests, the designers compiled a list of 15 eco-friendly fonts. It was not just about the fonts. The team paired up a better layout design that not only removed excessive white spaces on the pages but also was easy to read. One example shared by the media channel was how the font style Garamond Pro led to many more words on a page compared to Bembo, while they both retained a similar look. This way, the company ensures the relevance of font style with the content while also saving papers. Menzies pointed out, "The goal is to make these changes without the reader even seeing the difference."

Yet, this transition was not without its challenges. Finding the right effective font also posed the challenge of smudging ink. Headings or sub-headings printed in some heavy fonts led to bleeding of ink through the paper, which compromised the readability. Speaking about how they tackled this hurdle, Carlson-Stanisic said, "The designer is always balancing out not just a single page, but also what's on the page before and the page after. Ultimately, this ended up with finding fonts that used less ink, in addition to less paper, which is also better for the planet." To date, these simple but effective design adjustments have enabled the publisher to save 245.6 million pages, equivalent to 5,618 trees.