This was a terrific, reasonable take on this “controversy”. I have to admit that the correspondence set in Calibri looks like something dispatched from a leasing office. Imagine reading the Warren Commission report set in that. The author seems to settle on the consensus that surrounded TNR before this exchange made the news. It’s banal. At times it signals to its original objectives (e.g., Prof. Dr. style websites [1]). But still banal more often than not.<p>I love Univers. But I don’t think there’s anyone in public office with enough influence and swagger to ever enforce it. At the same time I have a bad feeling about the attention that decisions like this draw and what it may lead to. The article does a great job at portraying the general incompetence in both parties.<p>I can imagine Beto O’Rourke somewhere dreaming about styling all government communiqués like a page out of <i>Ray Gun</i>. Planning his come back. To set anything issued from Ted Cruz’s office in Zapf Dingbats. War.<p>[1]: <a href="https://contemporary-home-computing.org/prof-dr-style/" rel="nofollow">https://contemporary-home-computing.org/prof-dr-style/</a>
The Warren Commission report was set in Century Schoolbook, the Supreme Court's typeface of choice. The appendices are photo reproductions of originals produced on typewriters, so they are in something monospaced.<p>You can see for yourself. They certainly would not have used Times New Roman.<p>But I suppose interoffice memoranda are meant to be skimmed, not read, so TNR or Calibri are both fine.
I didn’t mean to suggest that they would’ve. I just named a government document with significant gravity behind it to affect a point similar to the author’s:<p>> There’s nothing inherently wrong with this style, but one would hardly want an official document or legal contract to appear “warm and soft.”<p>Consider the response I gave to the other child comment on this thread referring to a different document as a revision if that suits you. [1]<p>I’m sorry. I don’t know of nor do I have the wherewithal to find any correspondence from the State Department to bolster my argument that “humanist fonts” are not always suited to the tenor of all government correspondence. Oddly, none of the press releases on state.gov are available in PDF as far as I can tell.<p>Wait.<p>At least imagine <i>this</i>!<p>> The State Department is taking decisive action against five individuals who have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose. These radical activists and weaponized NGOs have advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states—in each case targeting American speakers and American companies. As such, I have determined that their entry, presence, or activities in the United States have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.<p><<a href="https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2025/12/announcement-of-actions-to-combat-the-global-censorship-industrial-complex/" rel="nofollow">https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/20...</a>><p>In “Carlito”!<p>It’s already in “Open Sans”, which looks thinner and may have a taller X-height. What do you think of it? Not quite “warm”; certainly “soft”, I think. Should I feel concerned about this news? Or just alright?<p>Anodyne. That’s the way the words start to look after some time when set like this. How far away is that feeling from “banal”?<p>[1]: <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/SAP-SJRes90.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/SAP-SJ...</a>
I love Univers as well, but the _Q_ is just _too_ weird by most folks perceptions.
Not sure why Beto is catching strays, but I can tell you're from Texas, heh.
I'm sorry, you can't argue the font choice signals banality in the same article in which you argue that readers aren't sophisticated enough on font choice to catch that serifs are supposed to signal professionalism.
Why not? One quality is inherent, the other inherited. The typeface was developed with banality in mind and presumably become popular because of its utility in this respect. The ensuing popularity in word processors and on the Web likely lead to the idea that it’s more professional than others.<p>Again, the author:<p>> Indeed, the stronger explanation for Times New Roman’s long reign isn’t aesthetic excellence, but practicality and inertia.
"The typeface was developed with banality in mind..."<p>That's completely wrong. Times New Roman was designed for legibility at small sizes, in narrow columns, on absorbent newsprint, printed at high speed. That is, it was designed explicitly for a very specific purpose, which it fills admirably.<p>None of that should be taken as any kind of comment on the current brouhaha.
I hate for us to have to make it clear that any claim in favor of the typeface’s suitability should not be interpreted as direct support for those responsible for re-instituting it. This isn’t an admonishment, but a lament I hope you may share.<p>While TNR wasn’t designed to evoke banality in its less desirable connotations I do think the way that you’re describing it match sensibilities that the word “banal” can also carry; Ordinary, commonplace. I admit—it’s a stretch I’m taking. But how far from banal is the utilitarian?
Because font choice outside of large strokes like fantasy fonts is meaningless.<p>All of this exposition only works if people are literate in typography enough to get it. Most people can't even understand literalist art, say nothing about the symbolism of typography.<p>It's like how the Victorians invented a whole meaning categorization to different species of flowers and then acted like it was universal law. It's a secret in-crowd code. It has no inherent meaning.
He can, he did, and we're all here arguing about it, which somehow delights me.
I suppose the administration's typo-ridden nonsense formatted with a serif-font MIGHT appear more professional. It's certainly possible, not impossible.
Right. Now imagine something like this:<p>> In response, based upon the cumulative effects of these hostile acts against the citizens and interests of the United States and friendly foreign nations, the President recognized that the United States is in a non-international armed conflict with these designated terrorist organizations. The President directed the Department of War to conduct operations against them pursuant to the law of armed conflict. The United States has now reached a critical point where we must use force in self-defense and defense of others against the ongoing attacks by these designated terrorist organizations.<p><<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/SAP-SJRes90.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/SAP-SJ...</a>><p>In “Carlito”!<p><<a href="https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Carlito" rel="nofollow">https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Carlito</a>>
Our studio, LucasFonts, designed Calibri. Here are our CEO Luc(as) de Groot’s thoughts on the matter:<p>Back to bad...<p>Deciding to ditch Calibri as a ‘wasteful diversity’ font is both hilarious and sad. I designed Calibri to make reading on modern computer screens easier, and in 2006 Microsoft chose it to replace Times New Roman as the default font in the Office suite. Microsoft moved away from Times for good reasons. Calibri performs exceptionally well at small sizes and on standard office monitors, whereas serif fonts like Times New Roman create more visual disturbance. Although serif fonts work well on high-resolution displays, such as those found on modern smartphones, the serifs can introduce unnecessary visual noise on typical office screens and be particularly problematic for users with impaired vision, such as older adults.<p>Professional typography can be achieved with serif or sans serif fonts. However, that is not very easy with Times New Roman, a typeface older than the current president. Originally crafted in Great Britain for newspaper printing, Times was optimised for paper, with each letterform meticulously cut and tested for specific sizes. In the digital era, larger-size drawings were repurposed as models, resulting in a typeface that appears too thin and sharp when printed at a high quality.<p>Depending on the situation, fonts with serifs are often considered more classic, but they take more work to get right. While a skilled typographer can produce excellent results with Times New Roman, using the digital default version is not considered professional practice. This font only offers two weights, Regular and Bold, and the Bold version has a very different design that does not fit well. There are many better serif typefaces available. The digital version of Times New Roman, developed in the early days of computing, includes only minimal adjustments to letter pairs. This is particularly noticeable in all-capital words such as ‘CHICAGO’, where the spacing is inconsistent: the letters ‘HIC’ are tightly packed, while ‘CAG’ are spaced too far apart. By contrast, Calibri incorporates extensive spacing adjustments and language-specific refinements.<p>This decision takes the administration back to the past and back to bad.<p>(Microsoft could not rectify spacing issues in Times New Roman without altering the appearance of existing documents.)
Verdana is more readable on low-resolution screens than Calibri. I never understood why they didn’t use the former, which already existed, and just extended its character repertoire a bit.
Personally, I don't have a problem with them changing fonts. I personally think Times isn't a great choice for the reasons articulated in that statement (something open and more legible seems better to me), but I don't think it's a horrible choice either (it's standard and efficient with space). If the State Department wants to use a certain font, it's their prerogative.<p>What bothers me about the decision is their rationale. If they had just switched without any explanation, it would have seemed more judicious and politic, befitting a department of state. Even better would be to announce a thoughtful font choice with reasoning based on the font itself, without defaulting to some thoughtless option "because that's the way it was done in the past", and moving away from the existing choice "because DEI". As it is, in my opinion, they made themselves look like idiots by obsessing over fonts from the perspective of something like DEI, as if they are paranoid over any possible subatom of DEI infecting their presence. Rubio couldn't just make it about the font, so to speak, he had to get hung up on irrelevant details which makes him (in my opinion) look worse than anything he might be criticizing.<p>If you read the original announcement, my impression was that the choice of Calibri was because it it made state department functions easier as Calibri was the default in commonly used software (which seems kind of a poor reason to me, but one I can respect on practicality grounds). Legibility was also a concern (as it should be in my opinion). So something functional about Calibri (legibility) becomes "DEI" which is almost like cooties for this administration. Even if you disagree about the legibility of Calibri, denouncing legibility as a criterion per se seems absurd to me.<p>The whole decision seems like a joke to me and a lost opportunity to set a decent design standard.
> The whole decision seems like a joke to me and a lost opportunity to set a decent design standard.<p>That would require that the individuals involved actually have <i>taste</i>. Instead, as with everything else from this administration, it's a toot on their favourite dog whistle.
repost ;) <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46229533">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46229533</a>
Honest question: do you have any financial stake in this? I'm assuming you don't get paid per-document or whatever but do you have any sort of income dependent on Microsoft shipping your font with outlook (whether as the default font or not)?<p>I don't mean to accuse you of anything but to 99% of the population this is a complete nothingburger and it looks ridiculous that anybody would care (this cuts both ways btw I also think Rubio is being a cringy idiot). I just don't understand what the big deal is here and I really cannot understand why anybody (on either "side") cares.
Fyi since your account is new. It’s a faux pas here to have a “company” account.
That’s not true. Sincere engagement is what people expect. A copy-and-paste of a statement is less desirable than, say, Lucas himself coming to post his thoughts, but it is still valuable and not a faux pas. The spirit of HN is: does the post or comment add something of value?
Says who? I’ve never heard that, and am not even close to new.
The company may well consist of only the poster himself.
This blog post has good fundamentals but ends up missing the mark. Is Times New Roman the perfect serif? Obviously not. Is it better than Calibri? Yes. Is “hey go back to how things were before” the simplest plan to execute? Also yes.<p>I personally would’ve liked Georgia since I imagine that’s similarly ubiquitous. People suggesting a custom typeface are out of their mind.
Shouldn't public documents by the government use a free and libre font? In fact, the mentioned Public Sans developed by the US federal government seems to be a great option, as it actually distinguishes the lowercase l and the uppercase I, something that, ironically, all suggested sans-serif alternatives fail to do.
Times New Roman is available at no cost under the Microsoft Core Fonts for the Web. (Microsoft no longer distributes this, but the license allows redistribution and redistribution is popular). AFAIK, Apple explicitly licenses the fonts and most open source OS distributions have a package for these fonts.<p>It's not libre, but font copyright is weird anyway, and the federal government doesn't always need to follow copyright.
You would hope, but changing this font isn't about making anything better, it's that Calibre was apparently a DEI font and had to go. I can't imagine these people thinking highly of an open source (Oooh communism) font that's also designed with accessibility in mind.
Are we still doing the communism thing? I thought the bogeyman is <i>socialism</i> now.<p>In any case, it would be nice to have some consistency across the government, and if they want to make a change, at least take prior works into account like what the Congress or SCOTUS are doing in their official texts.
Using either Calibri or Times New Roman makes it look like you did not put any thought into your brand and chose the default in Microsoft Word. The State department probably has certain constraints (i.e. they likely have to choose one of the fonts that ships with Microsoft Word, and possibly a subset of that that also ships on macOS), but they could definitely choose better than the default.<p>I find the narrow serif typefaces such as Century Schoolbook a bit harder to read than ones with more normal spacing, and I think the US government should optimize for legibility and accessibility over style in routine communications. Palatino or Garamond would probably be my choices.
It’s the US government, and it could easily develop their own Liberty- or Freedom-type if the current administration wanted to leave their own mark.
I love Garamond as a style but it wouldn’t be my choice for legibility. Most renditions of Garamond have too little x-height.
The worst is Times New Roman text with Calibri page numbers. A sure sign somebody never learned how to use Microsoft Word.
Does Word not default to switching all typefaces - header, footer, etc.? If so, IMO that’s a bad design that violates the principle of least surprise.
> The general public doesn’t perceive serif typefaces as professional and authoritative, a priori, before prioritizing their use in formal settings. Instead, people first observe that government, academia, and corporate workplaces disproportionately use serif faces — or are trained to use them — and only then infer that serifs must mean professionalism and authority.<p>A difficult to stomach claim followed up with evidence that I think supports the opposite than the author intended: the font being in used in <i>The Times of London</i>, which is indeed authoritative and professional despite it being written on cheap paper.<p>On another note, I would throw up if I had to read legal documents all day in a sans-serif font.
I too stopped when I read that sentence. It's like saying someone can't tell the difference in professionalism between someone in a well tailored three piece suit vs. a sweater and jeans until they've been taught.<p>Ornateness itself is associated with being attentive to detail and likely more wealthy.<p>And even if you take them at their word, it's a distinction without a difference. Serif is known to be more professional.<p>But! As many have pointed out, and he does about TNR in the article: the default font for documents tends to suggest apathy. That argument against TNR is just as strong for Calibri. And there are far better looking, more functional fonts than either of these two.
The font was used by the London Times until 1972.<p>And nobody thinks of the London Times when he sees Times New Roman. It’s just a default font many used in Word.
The correct typeface for the current U.S. administration would of course be Comic Sans or perhaps Comic Serif for double-super-serious documents.
And Wingdings for classified material!
Fraktur.
> Martin Bormann issued a circular (the "normal type decree") to all public offices which declared Fraktur (and its corollary, the Sütterlin-based handwriting) to be Judenlettern (Jewish letters) and prohibited their further use.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraktur" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraktur</a><p>I don't know if you meant to invoke pro/anti-Nazi associations with this typeface but it's unfortunate that such a fantastic lettering style carries around a poisonous historical connotation.
I am aware (of the Judenlettern decree). The reference to exactly this was intentional.<p>(Edit to make this <i>really</i> obvious: The joke here is that "fraktur = nazis" became such a meme that the nazis themselves were annoyed by it and forbade its use, but this is exactly the kind of thing the present administration would either be unaware of or simply ignore and then use fraktur intentionally to pander to neo-nazis.)
Thanks for spelling it out. I had a feeling that's the point you were making, but that level of subtlety has a hard time getting through, even on highbrow hn. Hence I like to err on the side of spelling things out, especially since I'm much more often a reader than a writer.
Why is that poisonous? It sounds like Fraktur was rejected by Nazi Germany which isn’t a bad thing at all.
Do you know anything about the Nazis, other than that they are bad?<p>They used Fraktur extensively before 1941 and it's closely associated with Nazi imagery. This is all explained in that link I posted.<p>I prefer to think of Lie groups, but it's rife in the Nazi propaganda of the 30s, official documents etc.
Fraktur would be apt as the oldest existing typeface. This administration and its supporters are so backward, it makes the 1600s look like mega-liberal ultra-modern science fiction. I’m just waiting for an executive order reintroducing cuneiform.
:-/
No, Comic sans is too woke.<p>In seriousness: Comic Sans seems to be a good font for dyslexic people and helps them read.<p><a href="https://dyslexichelp.org/why-is-comic-sans-good-for-dyslexia/" rel="nofollow">https://dyslexichelp.org/why-is-comic-sans-good-for-dyslexia...</a>
Wow, the sample shows that 15 point Calibri on official government documents was truly awful. In software when we make a mistake that causes some production issue the best first action is almost always to roll back. Maybe 14 pt TNR isn't the best, but rolling back to it is a defensible decision.
> The Supreme Court’s […] opinions are typeset in Century Schoolbook from that family. Originating in the 19th century, the typeface features more expansive proportions, balanced stroke contrast, and an elegant form, exuding a far more assertive presence than Times New Roman. As the name suggests, it also began life as a textbook face, optimized for legibility. With proper typesetting, it reads far better than a haphazardly produced Word document set in Times New Roman.<p>The example document is typeset in Century Schoolbook, with the exception of "SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES", which is typeset in Times New Roman.
One thing that I don’t see much mentioned in the article or the comments is that for Word documents at least, Times New Roman may be a more portable default if you want the document to render identically across platforms. Not everyone has Word and Word proprietary fonts installed. Times is proprietary but available on Linux and MacOS and has a metric compatible substitute in the open source. Not sure about Calibre.<p>Yes, fonts can be bundled with a document but that might impose legal considerations as well as technical.<p>Using more "standard" fonts like Times New Roman might thus help fight against the word processing monopoly.
As for Calibri, even Microsoft has moved on. They designed a successor font family for even better readability, and that happened before the State Department changed to Calibri. It also has serif variants.<p><a href="https://microsoft.design/articles/a-change-of-typeface-microsoft-s-new-default-font-has-arrived/" rel="nofollow">https://microsoft.design/articles/a-change-of-typeface-micro...</a><p>No knock on Calibri, which I admire.<p>(edited to put the link on its own line.)
Tangential but did not see it mentioned: Calibri must have been the Microsoft Word default at some point, at least in some parts of the world, because seeing it makes me think this is a Word document by a person that did not change the default font.
Well, the correct traditional font for State should really be Courier, because “Real America” used typewriters for all correspondence.
From the linked <a href="https://federalcourt.press/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Eighth-Circuit-Checklist.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://federalcourt.press/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Eighth...</a><p>> Typographic decisions should be made for a purpose. The Times of London chose the typeface Times New Roman to serve an audience looking for a quick read. Lawyers don’t want their audience to read fast and throw the document away; they want to maximize retention. Achieving that goal requires a different approach—different typefaces, different column widths, different writing conventions. Briefs are like books rather than newspapers. The most important piece of advice we can offer is this: read some good books and try to make your briefs more like them.<p>This is somewhat ironic as, if I'm not mistaken, it is written by lawyers and uses Times New Roman. (Does the 8th circuit want the reader to read fast and throw the document away?)
At some point in the past I read that serif fonts are better for readability, as the supports at the base of the letters form a line and help the eye stay “on track”. This is never mentioned in TFA, so I assume it’s an urban legend? Personally I much prefer serif fonts when reading longer texts.
Sure, Times New Roman is not a great font and comes with many negative connotations. But having official government communication look like a highschoolers first digital essay is even worse.<p>The obvious solution is doing what many large companies, as well as other governments are doing. Create your own Font. (e.g. <a href="https://styleguide.bundesregierung.de/sg-de/basiselemente/schriften" rel="nofollow">https://styleguide.bundesregierung.de/sg-de/basiselemente/sc...</a> <a href="https://www.ibm.com/plex/" rel="nofollow">https://www.ibm.com/plex/</a>)
"Instead, people first observe that government, academia, and corporate workplaces disproportionately use serif faces — or are trained to use them — and only then infer that serifs must mean professionalism and authority."<p>This is an aside, but many people would benefit from appreciating what is observed here, because it impacts an enormous numbers of preferences and perceptions people hold.<p>A good example is 24 FPS in cinema, which we generally attribute to high quality movies, baked in our value system via a technical/financial limit imposed a century ago. If a movie is presented any higher it gets mentally mapped with soap operas and low quality sitcoms, and it is disorienting to people. The Hobbit tried upping to 48FPS and it was described as "resembling low-budget video like American daytime soap operas rather than cinematic film". Higher quality TV dramas shoot at 24 FPS, intentionally forcing the 3:2 pulldown for TV presentation to signal "no, compare me to a movie not those other TV shows".<p>There are many areas in our life where we're judging things by this signalling criteria, and not by any real objective measure, yet people will often invent objective measures to assuage themselves that their values aren't so easily manipulated. Bring up 24FPS being a baked in <i>limitation</i> rather than some pinnacle of film making and many will start contriving why no, they actually prefer it because... It's all just noise.
Sadly, all that matters is it's free of any "DEI" connotations.
I guess this is the thing preventing the release of the Epsteins files…<p>I imagine a 20-strong commission deciding whether to publish them in colibri or times new Roman.<p>Taxes at work
"Healthcare pls"<p>edit for the silent downvoters:<p>The article was good for the topic at hand. My comment applies to the existence of the debate itself in the context of a failing first world country. For those unfamiliar, the meme is critical of both controlled opposition "sides" of our uniparty of capital interests.
A few HN commenting guidelines might apply here:<p>> Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.<p>> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.<p>> Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
> Eschew flamebait.<p>Arguably the OP borders on flamebait if that's the standard.<p>> Avoid generic tangents.<p>OP encapsulates an example of my comment, and is not a generic tangent.<p>> Omit internet tropes.<p>meme != trope<p>> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.<p>Like the first point, all or nothing.<p>> Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.<p>Point taken.
HN isn’t really for memes and quippy references. That’s the main reason you got downvoted, regardless of whether your substantive political point is a good one or not. The original comment matches the vibe of Reddit or Twitter a lot better than HN.