HN

Comments (93)

• sgnelson
  Since TNR was designed for print and thus it seems they expected the ink to "bleed" and make the characters appear thicker than they would have been for the actual (leaded?) type face, was this taken into account when turning it into a digital type face?From reading the article, it appears the answer is no. Has anyone made a TNR digital font that would account for how it would look if printed on 1900's newsprint?
• tevon
  The argument here doesn't hold up for me.The author states "The formality and authority of serif typefaces are largely socially constructed, and Times New Roman’s origin story and design constraints don’t express these qualities."Yes, formality and authority are both, quite literally, social constructs. There is NO "natural" or "universal" formality or even authority without human social input.I would also argue that, though most users cannot distinguish between a serif and sans serif font, they DO understand the serif fonts connote formality. eg in high school they were told to submit their papers in a serif font, or where they read a court opinion they also read serif (even if not the same font).Sure, the State Department could have selected a different serif font. But a reversion to what was previously used seems completely normal.Secondarily, I do think Calibri looks far too casual for the State Department. Its what I would use if I were quickly printing out my notes...
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  tolerance
  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.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.I can imagine Beto O’Rourke somewhere dreaming about styling all government communiqués like a page out of Ray Gun. Planning his come back. To set anything issued from Ted Cruz’s office in Zapf Dingbats. War.[1]: https://contemporary-home-computing.org/prof-dr-style/
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  LucasFonts
  Our studio, LucasFonts, designed Calibri. Here are our CEO Luc(as) de Groot’s thoughts on the matter:Back to bad...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.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.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.This decision takes the administration back to the past and back to bad.(Microsoft could not rectify spacing issues in Times New Roman without altering the appearance of existing documents.)
• internet2000
  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.I personally would’ve liked Georgia since I imagine that’s similarly ubiquitous. People suggesting a custom typeface are out of their mind.
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  magnio
  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.
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  rchowe
  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.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.
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  austy69
  > 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.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 The Times of London, which is indeed authoritative and professional despite it being written on cheap paper.On another note, I would throw up if I had to read legal documents all day in a sans-serif font.
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  imnotlost
  The correct typeface for the current U.S. administration would of course be Comic Sans or perhaps Comic Serif for double-super-serious documents.
• symbogra
  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.
• Kwpolska
  > 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.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.
• piker
  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.Yes, fonts can be bundled with a document but that might impose legal considerations as well as technical.Using more "standard" fonts like Times New Roman might thus help fight against the word processing monopoly.
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  jamesliudotcc
  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.https://microsoft.design/articles/a-change-of-typeface-micro...No knock on Calibri, which I admire.(edited to put the link on its own line.)
• coffeefirst
  Well, the correct traditional font for State should really be Courier, because “Real America” used typewriters for all correspondence.
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  atorodius
  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.
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  djoldman
  From the linked https://federalcourt.press/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Eighth...> 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.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?)
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  alex_suzuki
  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.
• constantcrying
  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.The obvious solution is doing what many large companies, as well as other governments are doing. Create your own Font. (e.g. https://styleguide.bundesregierung.de/sg-de/basiselemente/sc... https://www.ibm.com/plex/)
• llm_nerd
  "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."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.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".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 limitation rather than some pinnacle of film making and many will start contriving why no, they actually prefer it because... It's all just noise.
• TomMasz
  Sadly, all that matters is it's free of any "DEI" connotations.
• freetanga
  I guess this is the thing preventing the release of the Epsteins files…I imagine a 20-strong commission deciding whether to publish them in colibri or times new Roman.Taxes at work
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  swed420
  "Healthcare pls"edit for the silent downvoters: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.