[HN Gopher] Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri
___________________________________________________________________
Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri
https://archive.md/x0Sxc
Author : italophil
Score : 70 points
Date : 2025-12-10 00:08 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| manoDev wrote:
| Hilarious. It could be a Mike Judge script.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| "Do I look like I know what a jay-peg is?"
| rsynnott wrote:
| This is Michael Scott levels of managerial nonsense, bloody hell.
|
| Is Trump incapable of hiring anyone borderline competent?
| QuercusMax wrote:
| The only thing these morons understand are surface level
| appearances. That's why we have so many TV people.
|
| - Trump: The Apprentice
|
| - Defense: Hegseth: Fox News
|
| - Transportation: Sean Duffy: Real World / Road Rules
|
| - Education: Linda McMahon: WWE (yes, wrestling)
|
| ... I don't feel like going any further, it's too depressing.
|
| Edit: I just realized that Duffy is SecTrans because he was on
| _Road_ Rules.
| butvacuum wrote:
| Dear Lord... I'd not picked up on this- if true (I need to
| validate it for myself).
| QuercusMax wrote:
| I forgot Dr. Oz, who is in charge of Health and Human
| Services.
|
| Lots of articles about this; here's a random one:
| https://deadline.com/gallery/fox-news-personalities-trump-
| wh...
| manoDev wrote:
| The "Idiocracy" movie is now a documentary from the future.
| jesterson wrote:
| If you would bother to read the article instead of suffering
| from TDS, you would figure the font change was initiated by
| Blinken who was the part of... Biden administration. Rubio just
| cancels the font change.
|
| While I agree changing fonts is silly, the blame is totally on
| Biden admin. Now would you, being a person of integrity as I am
| sure you are, recall your blame on Trump and put the same blame
| on Biden?
| The_President wrote:
| Blinken was the name of the blind character sidekick in Men
| in Tights back in the day, so the preference of an actually
| less appropriate font for reading is on script.
| cbm-vic-20 wrote:
| There's a difference between "Let's use Calibri to make our
| documents more readable" and "Let's go back to TNR becuase
| using Calibri is woke nonsense by Biden's guy". They could
| have used pretty much any other reason to switch back to TNR,
| but decided to make it a childish DEI/"woke" jab.
| xigoi wrote:
| Is there any evidence that sans-serif typefaces are more
| readable? I've previously seen headlines claiming the
| opposite.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| You can find evidence for both sides, because life is
| more complicated than that. Do you have 20/20 vision? Hi-
| def screen? High contrast? Floaters in your eyes?
| Cataracts? Are you tired? How is the text laid out? Line
| spacing?
|
| Literally all of these can impact the answer.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Ok, now insert "broadly" or "generally" into the previous
| comment and respond to what they actually meant.
| greenhearth wrote:
| "TDS" is not a real thing, you clown. Grow up.
| slater wrote:
| Stopped clock, twice right?
| soupfordummies wrote:
| "[Rubio] ...calling his predecessor Antony Blinken's decision to
| adopt Calibri a "wasteful" diversity move..."
|
| Bro what. It was the default font in Microsoft for many years
| thus, it was the default font for most office software for many
| years -- just like Times New Roman was before.
|
| What.
| QuercusMax wrote:
| The article says it's better than Times New Roman because it's
| easier to read for those with disabilities - so of course the
| government needs to make things worse for them. Wonder if
| someone could sue over these kinds of changes that are being
| deliberately made to be less accessible.
| wvbdmp wrote:
| Is that even true? The article is really vague on the type of
| disability and basically just claims that serifs are harder
| to read.
|
| Generally sans-serif is advisable for small sizes, although I
| assume the main things are large open counters, tall x-height
| and low stroke contrast.
|
| I've often read that dyslexics favor strongly distinctive
| characters and "grounded", bottom-heavy letterforms. I feel
| like serifs actually sound pretty good there.
|
| It's also important to consider whether such studies were
| conducted before or after high-PPI displays became prevalent
| and leveled the playing field for serifs.
| benterix wrote:
| The wiki explicitly mension the typical sans disadvantage:
| "One potential source of confusion in Calibri is a visible
| homoglyph, a pair of easily confused characters: the
| lowercase letter L and the uppercase letter i (l and I) of
| the Latin script are effectively indistinguishable."
|
| So while I prefer Calibri as TNR has been the default for
| longer and hence is more boring to me, I can understand
| people might prefer a serif font for readability.
| xtiansimon wrote:
| Yeah. I have a dis-a-bility. It's now 2200 and I've been
| working since 0830. My eyes are tired and these 8's look like
| 0's, 5's look like 6's. What a tool.
|
| Now! Everything in Fraktur! HH.
| bigtones wrote:
| I had to check this was actually Reuters and not The Onion. _eye
| roll_
| chuckadams wrote:
| Apparently sans-serif is "woke" or something. Cleek's Law meets
| Poe's.
| ggm wrote:
| But you [sometimes] still have to use courier filing in the
| courts?
| CaliforniaKarl wrote:
| You follow the style guide or rules for the court in which you
| are filing. The US Supreme Court, for example, does not use
| Courier.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| Pretty soon they'll only accept crayon.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| The Supreme Court requires Century (which for any use other
| than maybe a newspaper is infinitely better than Times New
| Roman--and for a newspaper, Times is better than TNR.)
| techblueberry wrote:
| What was wasted?
| ranger_danger wrote:
| https://2021-2025.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-on-np...
|
| Secretary Antony Blinken on NPR's Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!
| About the U.S. Department of State moving from Times New Roman to
| Calibri.
| whoisthemachine wrote:
| Compare this:
|
| > calling his predecessor Antony Blinken's decision to adopt
| Calibri a "wasteful" diversity move
|
| to
|
| > SECRETARY BLINKEN: First, I'm called to make very weighty
| decisions (inaudible).
|
| > QUESTION: Oh. Type joke.
|
| > SECRETARY BLINKEN: And I'm always trying to be a font of
| wisdom, (inaudible).
|
| Just... ugh. People voted for all of this non-stop vitriol? I'd
| like to have a post that added something meaningful but all I
| have to add is frustration with humanity.
| SanjayMehta wrote:
| His boss' posts on Truth Social should be in Comic Sans.
| Gualdrapo wrote:
| Just remember that when the CERN announced they finally could
| prove the existence of the Higgs boson, they did it using Comic
| Sans
|
| https://blog.scottlogic.com/2012/07/05/the-higgs-boson-comic...
| SanjayMehta wrote:
| If Trump finds out he'll start "truthing" in Comic Sans and
| expecting a Nobel Prize in Physics.
| elashri wrote:
| To be honest, in the official papers they did not use it for
| either CMS or ATLAS.
| idatum wrote:
| I love how people are passionate about fonts. Search for the 2017
| Saturday Night Live skit with Ryan Gosling "Papyrus". It captures
| the obsession!
|
| "It's like they spent $300 million on the movie, and then.. They
| just used Papyrus."
| jaredklewis wrote:
| "Sometimes I get emotional over fonts."
|
| - Kanye West
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| Sadly, in this particular case, it's not the font that they are
| obsessed about.
| elzbardico wrote:
| I like serif fonts, but never liked Times New Roman too much.
| Printed, in high resolution, it is kind of ok, but I absolutely
| abhor it on displays. Which is where we read things 99% of the
| time nowadays.
| treetalker wrote:
| Butterick on TNR:
|
| (https://practicaltypography.com/times-new-roman-alternatives...)
|
| > When Times New Roman appears in a book, document, or
| advertisement, it connotes apathy. It says, "I submitted to the
| font of least resistance." Times New Roman is not a font choice
| so much as the absence of a font choice, like the blackness of
| deep space is not a color. To look at Times New Roman is to gaze
| into the void.
|
| > If you have a choice about using Times New Roman, please stop.
| Use something else.
|
| And on Calibri:
|
| (https://practicaltypography.com/calibri-alternatives.html)
|
| > Like Cambria, Calibri works well on screen. But in print, its
| rounded corners make body text look soft. If you need a clean
| sans serif font, you have better options.
|
| - - -
|
| To telegraph an identity, TNR is a good choice for this
| administration; so, credit where due, well played. Still, I would
| have gone with Comic Sans.
| nalnq wrote:
| The Times New Roman commentary could have been true back when
| it was written, but now Calibri is the default for Microsoft
| Word, and has been for a long while (almost 20 years). So
| choosing Calibri is the path of least resistance.
| Zafira wrote:
| Aptos has been the default font for Microsoft Word since
| 2023.
| pests wrote:
| With all the fanfare made over Calibri back when it was
| announced, TIL about Aptos
| adzm wrote:
| Aptos is slightly wider and taller but looks very very
| similar to calibri, especially calibri a point larger.
| rob74 wrote:
| So now Times New Roman not only looks uninspired and bland,
| but also dated? Yeah, I would say that's a good fit...
| Incipient wrote:
| >Still, I would have gone with Comic Sans.
|
| I don't often genuinely laugh out loud at comments on HN, but
| that one was good! Subtle, classy, and a gentle yet effective
| dig.
| deafpolygon wrote:
| Honestly, I like Comic Sans.
|
| It's clear, legible and whimsical.
| BobbyTables2 wrote:
| I definitely was thinking of Comic Sans. Both in terms of the
| horrible typeface and the "not funny" connotation of the name.
| (Yeah I know sans is referring to lack of serif)
| bjoli wrote:
| People like this makes me want to use Times New Roman more.
| Maybe not Butterick specifically (the website is fine), but all
| those people that make a blog and pick a font before even
| knowing what they even want to write. Most of the time people
| change the default my web browser has, they make things worse.
| For a font choice to be any kind of personal expression in my
| eyes, you first need everything else in place: content, layout,
| design.
|
| To spite these people I force the use of Arial on the worst
| offenders. The list is now a couple of thousand websites long.
| eviks wrote:
| But you're not spiting anyone, they don't even know about
| this, just wasting your time compiling a list of a thousand
| websites
| bjoli wrote:
| Oh, I could have picked a other font. I just get a smug
| feeling when forcing these websites to use Arial. The main
| reason for using another font on these web pages is that
| their own choices are worse than not changing it. So that
| list of thousands of web pages is to make their web pages
| legible and more usable, not just to be a prick.
|
| I picked Arial so that I could tell the web pages apart
| from those who had the good taste to leave my web browsers
| standard font alone. I don't mind arial.
| cafard wrote:
| For about ten years I worked for composition shops, and
| eventually for a maker of typesetting systems. Through blurred
| eyes I could tell TNR from Baskerville from Garamond from
| Janson from ... Some of these fonts I can still identify.
|
| But I have no idea what font was used in the book I just
| finished reading or the book that I'm returning to later today.
| My main question about a font is whether I can read it with old
| eyes.
|
| I do agree that designers should care about these matters. I'll
| add that for some portion of the reading public TNR more likely
| means The New Republic than Times New Roman.
|
| [Five minutes later: the book just finished, _What We Can Know_
| by Ian McEwan, appears to be set in Palatino, never a favorite
| of mine. The one I 'm returning to, I'm not sure.]
| js2 wrote:
| Previously:
|
| Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department,
| replaced by Calibri
|
| 207 points|danso|3 years ago|256 comments
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34427504
| porridgeraisin wrote:
| HN commentors on this font change harp on about how it's a
| waste of time (which it of course is), but that font change
| seemed to receive a more bland reaction. Funny.
| causal wrote:
| Well yeah? It's not about the font, it's about the pettiness
| of the declared reasons for the reversal
| mitchbob wrote:
| > Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the Biden-era move to the
| sans serif typeface "wasteful," casting the return to Times New
| Roman as part of a push to stamp out diversity efforts.
|
| https://archive.ph/2025.12.10-001235/https://www.nytimes.com...
| nine_k wrote:
| To actually reduce waste, they could have switched to a
| narrower typeface, such as Roboto Condensed. At least it would
| save some paper occasionally.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _While mostly framed as a matter of clarity and formality in
| presentation, Mr. Rubio's directive to all diplomatic posts
| around the world blamed "radical" diversity, equity, inclusion
| and accessibility programs for what he said was a misguided and
| ineffective switch from the serif typeface Times New Roman to
| sans serif Calibri in official department paperwork.
|
| In an "Action Request" memo obtained by The New York Times, Mr.
| Rubio said that switching back to the use of Times New Roman
| would "restore decorum and professionalism to the department's
| written work." Calibri is "informal" when compared to serif
| typefaces like Times New Roman, the order said, and "clashes"
| with the department's official letterhead._
|
| As far back as I can recall, this is a politician who has railed
| against 'political correctness'.
| softgrow wrote:
| As documented at
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_Easter_eggs google
| search for "times new roman font" and the results are returned in
| that font. (https://www.google.com/search?q=Times+New+Roman+Font
| for the lazy). Looks terrible on my screen.
| nine_k wrote:
| Nice! Also works with Courier and Comic Sans, but, sadly, not
| with Helvetica.
| cwnyth wrote:
| And Arial, Calibri, Georgia, and Cambria. It's missing Linux
| Libertine fonts, though. So typical.
| jgalt212 wrote:
| > The department under Blinken in early January 2023 had switched
| to Calibri, a modern sans-serif font, saying this was a more
| accessible font for people with disabilities
|
| That's interesting because I've long been under the impression
| that serif fonts promoted easier reading. As such, serif fonts
| could / should be considered more accessible.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46212438
| loadingcmd wrote:
| As the administration steps back from global affairs, it seems
| the State Department is searching for direction. Rubio would go
| like - we're done with managing world affairs via the NSS, what
| should we do next? Let's change the font for a new perspective!
| Hizonner wrote:
| I'm mostly surprised it wasn't Fraktur.
|
| How pitiful do you have to be as Secretary of State to get into
| minutiae about fonts, anyway?
| 648373628229 wrote:
| What's wrong with Fraktur?
| maxnoe wrote:
| Fraktur is often associated with the German far right,
| because it's a mostly German thing that nationalists can hang
| on to.
|
| Funnily enough, it was Goebbels who banned it and required
| everyone to change to Latin scripts.
| Terretta wrote:
| This change sounds like that "waste, fraud, and abuse" stuff.
|
| If you add up all the government memos, forms, letters,
| contracts, publications, everything printed globally...
|
| _"wow. many serif. so pointy. much ink. such waste!"_ -- Kabosu,
| probably
| zzo38computer wrote:
| Calibri font has "I" and "l" the same, according to Wikipedia. A
| better font should avoid characters being too similar (such as
| "I" and "l" and "1").
|
| Another issue is due to the font size and font metrics, how much
| space it will take up on the page, to be small enough to avoid
| wasting paper and ink but also not too small to read.
|
| So, there are multiple issues in choosing the fonts; however,
| Times New Roman and Calibri are not the only two possible
| choices.
|
| Maybe the government should make up their own (hopefully public
| domain) font, which would be suitable for their purposes (and
| avoiding needing proprietary fonts), and use that instead.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Come to think of it, I vs l vs 1 vs | is one advantage of serif
| fonts.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| > Maybe the government should make up their own (hopefully
| public domain) font
|
| Literally what happened here, but it doesn't help, because once
| there are different people in the government, the government
| now makes up their mind again about a different font choice.
|
| Maybe there is more important affairs to attend to? It's
| starting to sound like me when I have to do something I dread.
| Suddenly re-organizing and cleaning up my entire workshop
| sounds enticing...
| r0ckarong wrote:
| Good thing the world is entirely stable and the United States
| have literally no more pressing issues.
| RajBhai wrote:
| I have a couple of thoughts about this.
|
| Firstly, I thought sans-serif typefaces were encouraged for
| digital media because they read better than serif fonts. But now
| that high pixel density displays have permeated the market, this
| might be a moot point.
|
| On another note, I wonder how much of the hate TNR gets stems
| from its ubiquity for having been installed on almost all
| personal computers for the past n decades.
|
| Paganis are beautifully designed cars, but the labelling of
| buttons and toggles inside the center console look cheap (IMO)
| because their font seems straight out of a quickly made flyer
| designed by bored teacher who just discovered Word Art.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| My understanding has always been that serif fonts read better
| for long text, and sans-serif for short text - so signage in
| Arial and policy statements in Times New Roman.
|
| And Comic Sans for letters sent to friends finishing design
| school, obviously.
|
| There are all sorts of statistical rules falling out of studies
| about where the long/short divide is, ambient lighting, blah
| blah blah - but human vision is even more variable than most
| biological quantities, so in the end general rules are the best
| one can really do.
|
| Here of course, it's nothing more than rearranging the deck
| chairs, while the captain targets the next iceberg "to teach
| the ice a lesson!"
| tyleo wrote:
| Never before has a font change been so politically divisive.
|
| I'll personally be taking my votes to supporters of Helvetica
| next election.
| hbogert wrote:
| The left _and_ right signalling is such a waste of everyone 's
| time and effort. Reactive pettiness
| cratermoon wrote:
| Speaking of DEI: Stanley Morison, the inventor of Times New
| Roman, in collaboration with Victor Lardent, was one of the
| founders of The Guild of the Pope's Peace, an organization
| created to promote Pope Benedict XV's calls for peace in the face
| of the First World War. On the imposition of conscription in 1916
| during First World War, he was a conscientious objector, and was
| imprisoned.
| <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Morison#Early_life_and...>
| cratermoon wrote:
| Is it too off-topic or controversial to note that in January 1941
| in an edict signed by Martin Bormann, head of the Nazi Party
| Chancellery and private secretary to Adolf Hitler, the Nazis
| called for a ban on the future use of Judenlettern (Jewish fonts)
| like Fraktur?
|
| <https://web.archive.org/web/20151207071605/http://historywei...>
| sombragris wrote:
| I support the change, though the rationale used for it seems to
| me to be nonsense.
|
| Times New Roman might not be the world's most beautiful font, but
| at least is a little bit less atrocious than Calibri (which is
| awful). So, whatever the rationale invoked, I welcome the change.
|
| Sometimes, when I have to work on documents which will be shared
| with many users, I use Times New Roman as serif, and Arial as a
| sans serif. Both choices are (admittedly in my very subjective
| opinion) better than Calibri, and it's almost guaranteed that
| every PC will have these fonts available, or at least exact
| metric equivalents of them.
| gowld wrote:
| Calibri was the default MS Word from 2007 until July 2023, when
| Aptos took over.
|
| Calibri became the State font in Jan 2023.
| seydor wrote:
| Does that mean there will be a Times Caesar , a Times Lady , a
| Times Mistress and Universal Times new Rome Time? What a Time to
| be alive
| Bender wrote:
| Perhaps it is time to get traction on "tabs vs spaces". /s
|
| If they want to look like a proper government then the correct
| answer is monospace and in ALL CAPS just like FAA NOTAMS,
| obviously.
| ebbi wrote:
| The US political class are such a joke. Absolute laughing stock
| on the world stage. Trumps current administration is just
| amplifying that to a whole other level.
| youngNed wrote:
| But.... and this is important, it's not funny.
|
| "Here is a thing that makes a slight difference, with no cost,
| to a small percentage of people"
|
| "Nah, woke. Let's make it worse for them."
|
| There is nothing funny about performative cruelty
| groundzeros2015 wrote:
| I'm sorry, which of the font changes was the performative one
| and which was meaningful?
| the_gastropod wrote:
| Let's even say (incorrectly, probably) that the switch to
| Calibri was "performative" or "virtue signaling". That's,
| in my opinion, significantly less terrible than
| performative cruelty or anti-virtue signaling.
| AshleyGrant wrote:
| If you had read the article, you would know the answer to
| this question.
|
| Calibri is a font designed to be easier to read on screens,
| which is where documents are primarily read in 2025.
| Switching to using Calibri as the default was a meaningful
| change that provided improved accessibility at literally no
| cost to anyone.
|
| Switching back to Times New Roman, a serif font that is
| provably more difficult to read on screens is yet another
| act of performative cruelty by this administration who
| seemingly operates with "the cruelty is the point" as one
| of its core tenets.
| bena wrote:
| This is a performative change.
|
| The change to Calibri was meaningful.
|
| Because Calibri is an easier to read font on screens, which
| is where a lot more reading is being done.
|
| Since it was done as an accessibility measure, it is seen
| as something for "inclusion" which is part of the scary
| "DEI" (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion). So it had to go,
| because forbid we do something that makes things slightly
| easier for people.
| youngNed wrote:
| Performative? The one that you read about. The one that had
| a press release, the one that had articles on social media
| that you are commenting on.
|
| Meaningful? The one that looked into which font was more
| readable, for the most people
| xanderlewis wrote:
| With no cost?
| fnordprefect wrote:
| I'm with John Gruber, who is hardly a fan of this
| administration:
|
| https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/12/10/state-
| departmen...
|
| "Calibri does convey a sense of casualness -- and more so,
| modernity -- that is not appropriate for the U.S. State
| Department. And I do not buy the argument that Calibri is
| somehow more accessible for those with low vision or reading
| disabilities. People with actual accessibility needs should
| be catered to, but they need more than a sans serif typeface,
| and their needs should not primarily motivate the choice for
| the default typeface."
|
| Official departmental paperwork shouldn't look clownish.
| ebbi wrote:
| The same John Gruber that, quote tweeting a news article
| about Israel closing off phone and internet services to
| Gazans, wrote "Fuck around and find out"
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| Anyone who is laughing is a sucker and an idiot. You keep
| thinking this administration is incompetent, when in fact they
| are achieving all their goals. At this point anyone saying they
| are laughable should be assumed to be part of the propaganda.
| Ho ho ho, looks at the silly Nazis with their silly swastika.
| ebbi wrote:
| what
| websiteapi wrote:
| I'll never understand this silly take. they _just_ took a
| venezuelan oil tanker. is that a joke to you? you might
| disagree with what they 're doing, or argue they are
| _incompetent_ , but joke is very strange take. they are very
| serious. ask some undocumented immigrants in the USA about how
| much they're joking.
|
| in fact - any country seeing what trump is doing both
| domestically and internationally and _not_ taking their actions
| potentially against them seriously is stupid imho.
| ebbi wrote:
| I'm laughing at their sheer incompetence. This is coming from
| a minority who has been targeted by US governments policies
| and has lost friends because of this.
|
| Yes, the US government is a laughing stock while we have
| sympathy for those negatively impacted by the decisions made
| by these incompetent idiots.
| websiteapi wrote:
| you and I have very different definitions of joke it seems.
| ebbi wrote:
| I think you just need to read more. Your comprehension of
| common terms in context is lacking.
| websiteapi wrote:
| You should learn to be nice
| bravoetch wrote:
| I think by 'joke' people mean "their actions are unreasonable
| to the point of ridicule, and were they less consequential
| would be akin to the performance of a circus clown instead of
| a diligent policy maker."
|
| But the rest of us just shorten that to "joke".
| ebbi wrote:
| Thank you - exactly what I meant. I thought it was a common
| understanding when used in this context.
| cluckindan wrote:
| Obviously they would take a Venezuelan oil tanker. Oil is the
| only reason Trump is interested in Venezuela.
|
| https://intelpoint.co/insights/venezuela-saudi-arabia-and-
| ir...
| HPsquared wrote:
| Does anyone else like to change the font on news articles using
| Inspect Element?
|
| Also in Word etc, if I've got to spend a lot of time in a large
| document, I'll usually edit the paragraph body style temporarily
| to something sans serif. It's just better on screen.
| steanne wrote:
| i change it with refont
|
| https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/refont/
| lateforwork wrote:
| > _Does anyone else like to change the font on news articles
| using Inspect Element?_
|
| Yes, for sites that use unreadably thin fonts, such as
| https://stratechery.com
| umanwizard wrote:
| Funnily enough this story, despite extolling the virtues of
| sans-serif fonts for reading on screens, is typeset in a serif
| font.
| infotainment wrote:
| I still can't believe they switched to Calibri at all; the only
| people who should be using Calibri are people who don't realize
| that Microsoft Word lets you pick other fonts.
|
| I do wish they'd gone for a classier serif though; Garamond was
| _right there_.
| adamhartenz wrote:
| You think the US govenment would go for a French typeface?
| weinzierl wrote:
| To be fair, they _did_ choose a _Roman_ one - one with proper
| _Italics_ even.
| askew wrote:
| A "thank you" for _La Liberte eclairant le monde_.
| ben_w wrote:
| There's a certain _je ne sais quoi_ to the US government 's
| relationship with France. Le probleme avec
| les Americains, c'est qu'ils n'ont pas de mot pour
| <<entrepreneur>>.
| publicdebates wrote:
| I'm a Kings Caslon kinda guy myself. Partial to those more
| _practical_ fonts. Can 't beat 1800s print, they perfected the
| art by that point.
| throw03172019 wrote:
| I'm surprised this administration did not chose Comic Sans as the
| default font.
| user____name wrote:
| Rubio looks more like a Papyrus person.
| alamortsubite wrote:
| Can Comic Sans do all caps?
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| When I read the headline i thought "well obviously they don't
| mean Marco Rubio, there must be some famous publicist or
| something". Cannot believe it actually was Marco Rubio, lol
| weinzierl wrote:
| In 1941 Adolf Hitler personally gave order to make the use of
| the Antiqua mandatory and forbade the use of Fraktur and
| Schwabacher typefaces.
| gravy wrote:
| Didn't I read somewhere that serif fonts are better for dyslexia
| int0x29 wrote:
| Ah yes Calibri is now "DEI". Rubio don't you have a real job?
| itsjustjordan wrote:
| Slightly related but today I learned if you Google a font the
| site changes to that font.
| yincrash wrote:
| Even if you believe the previous administration switching fonts
| was virtue signaling, then by the same logic you have to also
| believe this is just virtue signalling.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| Yep, I've seen what craziness happens when the admin is woke,
| and I've seen the craziness when it's "anti-woke" and I
| preferred woke. At least woke didn't kidnap people into
| unmarked vans for writing a college newspaper article. I don't
| agree with woke, but they won't send me to Guatemala torture
| prison bc I don't agree
| cogman10 wrote:
| I'm really out of the loop on this.
|
| What virtue is being signaled by who?
|
| I know people get real touchy about fonts, but I have a hard
| time understanding why this is even a news article.
| epolanski wrote:
| Because politicians are making political choices on fonts
| rather than leaving those matters to technicians.
| lurk2 wrote:
| Calibri is a Sans Serif font and because it has been the
| default Microsoft Office font for more than a decade, it is
| fake email job haver coded (i.e. it appeals to young and
| middle-aged women who work in HR, this demographic being
| predominantly Democrat). Times New Roman is a Serif font
| which looks old and official to cater to boomers and has
| Roman in it to appeal to Zoomers who want to RETVRN with a V
| to tradition.
|
| (I didn't read the article as this is a non-story, but I'm
| definitely right).
| Eduard wrote:
| Just guessing from what is written in the article: Calibri
| once was chosen by the former administration for
| accessibility reasons. Maybe the virtue signaling being that
| Calibri isn't great with respect to accessibility (and IMHO
| wasn't even designed for it in the first place).
| blueflow wrote:
| No? If signalling led to an decision, the reversal is not
| automatically signalling based. Calibri is just not a good
| font.
| vvpan wrote:
| How far has the migration away from TNR to Calibri progressed? Is
| it redoing everything or is it just abandoning an incomplete
| ongoing migration that mostly just started?
| epolanski wrote:
| This feels like dystopia, sane management or administrations
| should delegate this stuff to experts, not politicians.
|
| We live in the world were everything is now "vibed" really.
| WhyOhWhyQ wrote:
| Is Calibri actually more accessible? Every step of this story
| seems pointless and fake.
| papercrane wrote:
| One of the reasons Calibri was selected over Times New Roman
| was it has a lower rate of OCR transcription errors, making
| documents using it easier for people using screen readers.
| legitster wrote:
| If I remember correctly Microsoft did a bunch of studies back
| in the day and found the Calibri had some of the best
| readability across a range of visibility and reading
| impairments (like dyslexia).
|
| Serif fonts have some readability features of their own,
| specifically for printed word.
| sroerick wrote:
| This feels more like Microsoft lock-in than anything else. But
| I don't know how that conspiracy would actually work.
|
| What is involved in changing the font for a government agency?
| anilakar wrote:
| > present a unified, professional voice in all communications
|
| Might want to start by banning tweeting then.
| ModernMech wrote:
| Professionalism: "Quiet piggy. Are you stupid? You don't have
| to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that. You're a
| terrible reporter. Horrible. Insubordinate. You're ugly both
| inside and out, and a nasty person."
| hs586 wrote:
| I just realized that if you google the font (e.g. "Calibri
| font"), you get the search results in that font. Neat!
| _bohm wrote:
| Works for lots of other fonts too :)
| Havoc wrote:
| This is why I'm seriously considering learning Chinese. Next 50
| years won't be US lead.
|
| When senior government officials are spending time & public
| mindshare/attention on whether a particular font is or is not
| diverse then you know it is game over.
|
| The details don't matter...this being a topic at all is the news
| CodingJeebus wrote:
| Read up on the state of the Chinese economy, it's not a given
| they'll be in the drivers seat long term either.
| mhd wrote:
| Don't a lot of courts use/mandate Century? Just use that. Better
| than TNR. If you can't afford a custom font...
| bakies wrote:
| This admin does like Roman stuff- like their salute
| deadbabe wrote:
| Similarly, under the Biden administration there was a push for
| memory safety and adopting the Rust programming language.
|
| Now memory safety sounds too woke, and Trump administration will
| be moving back to pure C.
| throwacct wrote:
| Could anyone please explain how this is "news" worthy? There are
| literally more pressing issues (inflation, wars, etc), and
| covering this is asinine, to say the least.
| legitster wrote:
| > "To restore decorum and professionalism to the Department's
| written work products and abolish yet another wasteful DEIA
| program, the Department is returning to Times New Roman as its
| standard typeface."
|
| So to reiterate, the department decided to move on from the 1992
| default Word font to the 2007 Word default (1 year after it was
| no longer the default).
|
| Nothing is safe from politics when even a font choice has become
| "woke".
| embedding-shape wrote:
| > https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/12/addr...
|
| > window.getComputedStyle(document.querySelector('.entry-content
| > p')).fontFamily
|
| > '"Instrument Sans", sans-serif'
|
| I guess The White House hasn't received the memo yet about how
| important serifs is for "presenting a unified, professional voice
| in all communications". What a joke.
| Havoc wrote:
| US has genuinely lost it
|
| It genuinely feels like someone worked out that you don't
| actually need to build a better stealth bomber than the B2. You
| just need to infiltrate government enough to have them debate
| what fonts are woke
|
| Then I think "nah surely not. can't be that easy". And then next
| week...another insane thing comes out of US republican camp. I'm
| starting to think one does indeed not need B2s to defeat an enemy
| apercu wrote:
| The current administration will do anything to distract folks
| from the corruption, fraud, grift and incompetence.
|
| And it works!
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