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Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

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Re: Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

#81

Post by okamiueru »

pc86 wrote: post #64
okamiueru wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would hope someone who don't know the context or effect of a choice they are making, at the least consults with someone who does? This isn't rocket science to get right.

This is such a weird HN-style take. I would bet money the start of this selection was "give me a list of the fonts on all our computers right now" and then they picked one. Probably Calibri after seeing it as the default in some other application. Nobody at the State Department is diving into the intricacies of font licensure.

Can you describe what "HN-style take" means to you?

I'm saying that a decision should be made by weighing pros/cons by someone qualified to make them. If that's HN-y, then that sounds great.

It doesn't sound like how you described this process is anything short of incompetence or "phoning it in". Which, I'm sure is a valid explanation for how they ended up deciding it. But, I'm using the word "dumb" in not a literal sense. It covers both incompetence and laziness.

Also, if you are deciding on a font to be used widely. One of the key aspects is exactly the license. It describes the conditions for its use. If your job is to evaluate which fonts to use, and you don't consider the conditions for its use, then yes, you are incompetent in that decision. And its not "intricate", its the bare minimum expected.

Re: Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

#84

Post by colinwilyb »

chomp wrote: post #29
okamiueru wrote: post #16

I never understand why someone in charge of making one specific simple choice, ends up making a remarkable dumb decision. Why, unless you are doing things unethically, would you go for a licensed font? It's not like this is a hard problem to solve more than adequately with open and more accessible alternatives.

Logistics probably. With out a doubt you know this font is deployed on most systems around the world. It’s maintained by one of the largest companies in the world. And its provenance can be assured.

Now I want to make a custom Times New Roman font with unpredictable ligatures and 0-width vector data so poorly monitored systems create false data when printed in hardcopy.

Re: Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

#86

Post by Multicomp »

jamesliudotcc wrote: post #35

What I want to know is what they were doing before 2004 when they adopted Times New Roman. Courier? Gothic? Calibri is a nice screen-reading typeface. It is likely that "upstairs" reads on a screen, but I wouldn't bet that much on it. Times New Roman was designed to shove as many letters into a multi-column newspaper page as possible. It's atrocious for anything else, and should be confined to whence it came, print n…

Yeah, Courier (size 12, double-spaced?) because it was very close to typewriters. I can't find a wikipedia source though, so I may be mis-remembering.

Re: Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

#87

Post by NeoTar »

Joker_vD wrote: post #79
sdflhasjd wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And still not even A4

A/B/C paper series formats are based on metrics system and therefore, morally evil and unfit for the US consumption.

In case anyone is unaware, A0 is 1m^2 in size, and each adjacent number is half the size (i.e. A1 = 500 000 mm^2, A2 = 250 000 mm^2, A3 = 125 000 mm^2, A4 = 62 500 mm^2).

This has the great advantage of allowing documents to be easily up and down-scaled on a photocopier - i.e. an A3 document can be printed at 50% scale on an A4 sheet.

I wonder if anyone ever tried to do something similar with imperial units (AKA English units to the US Americans) - i.e. create sheets of papers with side-length of sqrt(2) : 1, and the largest being 1 square yard or similar.

Re: Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

#88

Post by adrian_b »

splatzone wrote: post #4

Interesting that the memo claims that sans serif fonts are preferred to serif fonts for screen reader users and people with disabilities. I thought the exact opposite was true. Is there any definitive research on which type of font is more accessible?

Sans serif fonts are preferable only on low-resolution displays (this includes 1080p) or at small point sizes, because in this cases the good serif fonts cannot be rendered correctly.

The classic serif fonts cannot be rendered correctly at low DPI not only due to their serifs (which must be enlarged at low resolutions, to avoid their disappearance; this transforms all classic serif typefaces into uglier slab-serif typefaces), but also due to their "contrast", i.e. because they have both thin and thick lines (which are equalized in width at low resolutions, distorting the glyphs). Some of the better modern sans serif typefaces, e.g. Optima, also cannot be rendered correctly at low DPI, due to their variable-width lines.

On high DPI displays, the preference for sans serif or for serif is driven mainly by the familiarity with the tested typefaces, so it is impossible to predict from the results of a half hour test, where the people may see for the first time some typefaces, which of them they would prefer after using them continuously for six months.

Re: Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

#89

Post by mat_epice »

prottog wrote: post #80
ceejayoz wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Every time I have to renew my Australian passport I have to buy a ream of A4 paper. Every time I forget where last time's ream was stored. I suspect someday I'll find thousands of sheets somewhere lost in my basement.

Just buy a printer with two paper trays and reserve one for A4 paper. Problem solved!

Seems pretty heavy handed for something that happens at the cadence of Australian passport renewal (10 years in most cases). I believe I replace my printer at least that often.

Re: Times New Roman is being phased out at the State Department, replaced by Calibri

#90

Post by sremani »

valgaze wrote: post #44

Allegedly during Colin Powell’ time at the State Department there was quite an ordeal to change paper sizes for communication between offices: https://www.govexec.com/magazine/2001/06/the-powell-leadersh... “correspondence between headquarters and overseas embassies, known as Diplomatic Notes, for years had to be accompanied by a legal-size (8 1/2-inch by 14-inch) cover sheet. That wasn't really a big deal when the n…

No wonder State Department is called Foggy Bottom (I know the real reason) but it lives up to its name.
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