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Tag: calibri

  • A Brief History of Calibri, the ‘Woke’ Font

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    Calibri and Times New Roman have been at war for years. And now the two fonts are once again pitted against each other after the U.S. State Department declared it will be swapping its current official typeface, Calibri, for Times New Roman. It’s a full-circle moment, considering the State Department ditched Times New Roman for Calibri in just 2023.

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote that switching to Calibri was “wasteful” and “achieved nothing except the degradation of the department’s official correspondence” in an internal department memo obtained by Reuters and The New York Times.

    The type designer behind the sans-serif font Calibri calls Rubio’s decision “hilarious and regrettable.”

    Lucas de Groot designed Calibri in 2007 specifically for readability on computer screens. The width and curvature of its simple letterform was optimized to be easy to read, and it replaced Times New Roman as the default font in Microsoft Office in 2007 (before being replaced by Aptos in 2023).

    In 2023, the State Department decided to replace Times New Roman with Calibri for all official communications and memos. It was a bid for greater accessibility throughout the organization. At the time, then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Times New Roman “can introduce accessibility issues for individuals with disabilities who use Optical Character Recognition technology or screen readers.”

    Not everyone was happy about the decision, but de Groot believes it was the right choice.

    “There were sound reasons for moving away from Times,” de Groot tells Fast Company in an email. “Calibri performs exceptionally well at small sizes and on standard office monitors, whereas serif fonts like Times New Roman tend to appear more distorted.”[Animation: FC]

    A DEI typeface

    In the memo, sent with the subject line “Return to Tradition: Times New Roman 14-Point Font Required for All Department Paper,” Rubio called Calibri “informal” and said it “clashes” with State letterhead. He also criticized it as a “radical” diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility initiative.

    Blinken, Rubio’s predecessor, made the 2023 change to Calibri at the recommendation of the department’s office of diversity and inclusion due its accessibility and ease to read for people with disabilities. Now it’s getting swept up in Trump’s wider “war on woke.”

    Times New Roman (top), Calibri (bottom)

    Serif typefaces, with their small feet, or serifs, on the letterform, are sometimes perceived to be more conservative. Meanwhile, some believe that sans serifs read as more modern and progressive, though that’s far from a hard-and-fast rule. After all, Trump loves a sans-serif font, and Sen. Bernie Sanders has leaned in to serif typography for his campaign logos.

    “Serif fonts are often perceived as more traditional, but they are also more demanding to use effectively,” says de Groot, noting that the spacing is noticeably inconsistent in all-capital-letter Times New Roman in words like “Chicago,” and the font appears too thin and sharp when printed at high quality.

    For many readers, though, font preference has less to do with politics than it does personal taste and what they’re used to seeing. There were interoffice complaints when the State Department switched to Calibri that sound an awful lot like normal office grumblings when one has to switch from Slack to Teams for messaging.

    “I think the idea that a typeface is woke is kind of ridiculous,” says type designer Jonathan Hoefler, who designed the Biden-Harris typography and is the co-creator of Gotham, a typeface that’s now been used by presidential candidates of both parties.

    Typefaces aren’t good or bad, Hoefler says. They are simply designed to solve different problems. Times New Roman was designed for newspaper text, and Calibri was designed for a screen.

    “None of these are bad typefaces; they’re just designed around their circumstances,” he notes.

    By Hunter Schwarz

    This article originally appeared in Inc.’s sister publication, Fast Company.

    Fast Company is the world’s leading business media brand, with an editorial focus on innovation in technology, leadership, world changing ideas, creativity, and design. Written for and about the most progressive business leaders, Fast Company inspires readers to think expansively, lead with purpose, embrace change, and shape the future of business.

    The final deadline for the 2026 Inc. Regionals Awards is Friday, December 12, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply now.

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    Fast Company

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  • Now the Trump Administration Is Coming After Our Fonts

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    He’s the narrow type.
    Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

    If I had to pick a word to describe Calibri, the sans-serif typeface that was the default font for Microsoft apps from 2007 to 2024, it would probably be “inoffensive.”

    Sure, Microsoft’s “extremely readable” font has had its critics over the years, but they’ve mostly just complained that it’s too plain, that it lacks personality. I’d bet that for most people, Calibri became a ubiquitous, thoughtless part of their normal life, from office memos to book reports, and few probably realized it was designed and implemented to be a more readable typeface on digital screens — which it has been. Even Microsoft has said that customers didn’t really have strong feelings about it, unlike with other fonts. Everybody thought it was … fine. But it turns out we were all wrong: According to the Trump administration, this 21-year-old boring font is weak and woke.

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday barred the use of Calibri at the State Department and brought back the serif Times New Roman, which was the agency’s official font from 2004 to 2023. This was necessary, he said, to reverse the “wasteful” and distasteful shift to Calibri ordered by his Biden administration predecessor, Antony Blinken. Rubio alleged that change — which provoked little meaningful controversy at the time — was yet another example of woke radicalism run amok, since the change was recommended by the State Department’s now-disbanded DEI office because Calibri is considered to be easier to read for people with disabilities like dyslexia or vision problems. Per the New York Times report:

    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. …

    Mr. Rubio’s directive, under the subject line “Return to Tradition: Times New Roman 14-Point Font Required for All Department Paper,” served as the latest attempt by the Trump administration to stamp out remnants of diversity initiatives across the federal government. …

    Echoing President Trump’s call for classical style in federal architecture, Mr. Rubio’s order cited the origins of serif typefaces in Roman antiquity. 

    Julius Caesar would never have used Calibri, so neither should Donald Trump’s federal government, where addressing the needs of the disabled is nowhere near as important as demonizing diversity and fetishizing trad aesthetics.

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    Chas Danner

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