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Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

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Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#31

Post by tolerance »

wavefunction wrote: post #25
tolerance wrote: post #23

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 […

I suppose the administration's typo-ridden nonsense formatted with a serif-font MIGHT appear more professional. It's certainly possible, not impossible.

Right. Now imagine something like this:

> In response, based upon the cumulative effects of these hostile acts against the citizens and interests of the United States and friendly foreign nations, the President recognized that the United States is in a non-international armed conflict with these designated terrorist organizations. The President directed the Department of War to conduct operations against them pursuant to the law of armed conflict. The United States has now reached a critical point where we must use force in self-defense and defense of others against the ongoing attacks by these designated terrorist organizations.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/SAP-SJ...>

In “Carlito”!

https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Carlito>

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#32

Post by wonger_ »

skywhopper wrote: post #20
phantom784 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was once taught that serif fonts are better in print, and sans-serif is better on a screen.

This was definitely true in the days before hi-res screens and good anti-aliasing, simply because the serifs get lost or become noise in lower-resolution settings. It’s probably less true today. Of course, in terms of accessibility, there are any number of reasons why someone might prefer to read content in any number of typefaces. Certain typefaces are better for folks with dyslexia. Others may be better for certain…

Thanks for that. I thought the same as phantom784 and never updated my opinion for hi-res screens.

Related to choosing defaults: I like these tips for evaluating the legibility of a body typeface: https://prowebtype.com/selecting-body-text/ They mention one serif advantage, that "most serif typefaces are often ideal choices for reading text due to the noticeable strokes in their ascenders and descenders."

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#33

Post by 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.

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#34

Post by gordonhart »

swed420 wrote: post #18

[flagged]

A few HN commenting guidelines might apply here:

> Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.

> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

> Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#35

Post by 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.)

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#36

Post by Suzuran »

Y_Y wrote: post #9
Suzuran wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fraktur.

> Martin Bormann issued a circular (the "normal type decree") to all public offices which declared Fraktur (and its corollary, the Sütterlin-based handwriting) to be Judenlettern (Jewish letters) and prohibited their further use. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraktur I don't know if you meant to invoke pro/anti-Nazi associations with this typeface but it's unfortunate that such a fantastic lettering style carries aro…

I am aware (of the Judenlettern decree). The reference to exactly this was intentional.

(Edit to make this really obvious: The joke here is that "fraktur = nazis" became such a meme that the nazis themselves were annoyed by it and forbade its use, but this is exactly the kind of thing the present administration would either be unaware of or simply ignore and then use fraktur intentionally to pander to neo-nazis.)

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#37

Post by loughnane »

LucasFonts wrote: post #28

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.…

Fyi since your account is new. It’s a faux pas here to have a “company” account.

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#38

Post by 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?)

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#39

Post by sgarland »

jamesliudotcc wrote: post #30
rchowe wrote: post #10

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 t…

The worst is Times New Roman text with Calibri page numbers. A sure sign somebody never learned how to use Microsoft Word.

Does Word not default to switching all typefaces - header, footer, etc.? If so, IMO that’s a bad design that violates the principle of least surprise.

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#40

Post by kccqzy »

phantom784 wrote: post #17
alex_suzuki wrote: post #16

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.

I was once taught that serif fonts are better in print, and sans-serif is better on a screen.

Yeah right. Times New Roman rendered using late 1990s software on monitors of that era certainly looked awful. These days text on screens can reasonably look like print.
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