Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri

Posted by italophil 14 hours ago

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Comments

Comment by js2 13 hours ago

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

Comment by porridgeraisin 1 hour ago

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.

Comment by idatum 13 hours ago

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."

Comment by seba_dos1 12 hours ago

Sadly, in this particular case, it's not the font that they are obsessed about.

Comment by jaredklewis 13 hours ago

“Sometimes I get emotional over fonts.”

- Kanye West

Comment by RajBhai 5 hours ago

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.

Comment by soupfordummies 13 hours ago

"[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.

Comment by QuercusMax 13 hours ago

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.

Comment by wvbdmp 13 hours ago

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.

Comment by benterix 5 hours ago

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.

Comment by xtiansimon 2 hours ago

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.

Comment by elzbardico 13 hours ago

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.

Comment by manoDev 14 hours ago

Hilarious. It could be a Mike Judge script.

Comment by 13 hours ago

Comment by ranger_danger 13 hours ago

"Do I look like I know what a jay-peg is?"

Comment by ggm 13 hours ago

But you [sometimes] still have to use courier filing in the courts?

Comment by dragonwriter 13 hours ago

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.)

Comment by CaliforniaKarl 13 hours ago

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.

Comment by bigtones 13 hours ago

I had to check this was actually Reuters and not The Onion. eye roll

Comment by Terretta 9 hours ago

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

Comment by rsynnott 13 hours ago

This is Michael Scott levels of managerial nonsense, bloody hell.

Is Trump incapable of hiring anyone borderline competent?

Comment by QuercusMax 13 hours ago

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.

Comment by manoDev 1 hour ago

The "Idiocracy" movie is now a documentary from the future.

Comment by butvacuum 13 hours ago

Dear Lord... I'd not picked up on this- if true (I need to validate it for myself).

Comment by QuercusMax 11 hours ago

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...

Comment by jesterson 10 hours ago

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?

Comment by The_President 48 minutes ago

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.

Comment by ranger_danger 13 hours ago

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.

Comment by whoisthemachine 13 hours ago

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.

Comment by chuckadams 13 hours ago

Apparently sans-serif is "woke" or something. Cleek's Law meets Poe's.

Comment by SanjayMehta 13 hours ago

His boss' posts on Truth Social should be in Comic Sans.

Comment by Gualdrapo 12 hours ago

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...

Comment by elashri 9 hours ago

To be honest, in the official papers they did not use it for either CMS or ATLAS.

Comment by SanjayMehta 12 hours ago

If Trump finds out he'll start "truthing" in Comic Sans and expecting a Nobel Prize in Physics.

Comment by impure 13 hours ago

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Comment by istillcantcode 13 hours ago

Finally some good news