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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

#141

Post by paulv »

ckwalsh wrote: post #129
vorpalhex wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't put things where I think they should go, I put them where I am likely to look for them" - Adam Savage

I really like this quote, but I can't find any reference to Adam Savage saying it. Closest I can find is his concept of "First Order Retrievability" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyCrHLYiGNo

I recently watched the video where he said it, but I can't remember which one it was. It was one of the ones on the Tested channel, either an ask Adam or one of the questions from a live stream they made in to a video.

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

#142

Post by hot_gril »

fprog wrote: post #91

A shame they didn’t opt for Public Sans, which was designed by the US Web Design System team. Though I see it only supports Latin characters at the moment, which might make it unsuitable for use at State. https://public-sans.digital.gov

Serif'd fonts are easier to read.

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

#143

Post by hot_gril »

branon wrote: post #2

Calibri is Microsoft-encumbered, no? Shame they didn't use a free font like Liberation Sans.

Eh, better to name the free fonts something that doesn't give an "I can't afford the name brand" vibe. Nothing about freedom even needs to be in the name. To most people, all fonts are already free cause they cost nothing.

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

#144

Post by dredmorbius »

hotpotamus wrote: post #71
maxk42 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from licensing, usability studies show that serif fonts are more legible than sans serif fonts, so I have no idea where they came up with the idea that somehow they're harder to read for people with disabilities when all prior research I'm aware of has shown the opposite.

I vaguely remember something about there being a difference on printed paper vs screens when it comes to serifs. But also, aren't most aircraft controls labeled in something like Futura? I believe the Apollo program and other aerospace studies decided that was the most legible.

Lower-dpi screens, including the traditional ~96 dpi of classic monitors, makes serif-fonts less clear.

High-definition screens (such as the iMac retina display I'm looking at presently) and many e-ink devices hit 200+ dpi (200--300 is not uncommon for e-ink), which is the starting point for many laserprinters, though those can go to 600--1200 dpi. Monchrome vs. colour will show some distinction in clarity (monochrome effectively has about 3x greater resolution in displays given three-colour picture elements (pels).

My own experience is that I much prefer serif to sans-serif fonts for any substantial reading, though labels and titles may read better in a sans font.

State's decision here seems quite flawed.

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

#145

Post by hot_gril »

Dalewyn wrote: post #105

As one of the very few moon dwellers who finds Calibri fucking blinding to read, I hate this. Times New Roman all day every day, or any of Arial/Tahoma/Verdana for sans serif.

I spent probably half an hour figuring out how to make my Google Docs default to Times New Roman for any new docs after. It's a good font. Calibri is trash.

Even worse, a widely-used design doc template here uses a title-only font in the body. I was wondering why it's so hard to read, even for a sans serif font, until I noticed that.

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

#146

Post by aidenn0 »

I think they are conflating "serif" with "Times" Times is a very narrow font, which has all sorts of readability issues (it's very readable for the space it takes up, but damn it's narrow). I have yet to see an OCR do better on a serif font that has a bit more girth to it. In particular I see things like "III" as being impossible to read for both OCRs, and (in the absence of context) humans in sans-serif fonts.

I'd put up a nice sans typeface with single-storey "g" (the double-storey "g" is hard to read for a lot more people than one might think) against a sans-serif any day.

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

#147

Post by aidenn0 »

hot_gril wrote: post #142
fprog wrote: post #91

A shame they didn’t opt for Public Sans, which was designed by the US Web Design System team. Though I see it only supports Latin characters at the moment, which might make it unsuitable for use at State. https://public-sans.digital.gov

Serif'd fonts are easier to read.

Per TFA they picked a sans font (Calibri) under the mistaken impression that sans serif fonts are easier to read.

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

#149

Post by riffraff »

LarryMullins wrote: post #133
Joker_vD wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> metric [...] morally evil I've never heard an American complain that Coca Cola is sold by the liter. There's no moral component to Americans not wanting to switch to metric. It's simply a matter of the switch and retooling being more hassle than continuing to use American customary units. Frankly, the difference seems to bother Europeans a lot more than it bothers Americans.

> Frankly, the difference seems to bother Europeans a lot more than it bothers Americans.

Probably because European consume a lot of content from the US which makes little sense to them

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

#150

Post by aidenn0 »

kypro wrote: post #93

I've wondered in the past what the cultural influence of font legibility is. I'd imagine someone who grew up reading serif fonts would feel much more comfortable reading a document with a serif typeface than someone like myself who doesn't interact much with serif fonts. For me serif fonts look kind of off and weird. On the other hand monospaced fonts look strangely beautiful to me so I use monospaced fonts on my blo…

> someone who grew up reading serif fonts would feel much more comfortable reading a document with a serif typeface than someone like myself who doesn't interact much with serif fonts

I grew up reading books, so I suppose I count as someone who grew up reading serif fonts. I find sans serif fonts to be incredibly difficult to read. They only are a win for small on-screen text since there aren't enough pixels for serifs. I have a sans-serif font for my window titles. Reading more than a single paragraph in sans is fatiguing to me.

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