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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

#91

Post by dheera »

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 […

> correspondence set in Calibri looks like something dispatched from a leasing office

In general this is the way I feel about anything written in a Microsoft-, Apple-, or Ubuntu-supplied typeface. If you stick to system fonts you the pinnacle of embodiment of apathy in my book.

Have some backbone, browse through Google fonts, pick something that represents your organization and stick with it.

Even if you are a leasing office, pick a good font. That will make me more likely to lease from you because your attention to typography conveys to me that you will also be attentive to details in building maintainence. If you communicate in Times New Roman and Arial it tells me that you probably are apathetic about mold in the walls and electrical code as well.

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#92

Post by 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...

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#93

Post by ericmay »

halostatue wrote: post #77
derbOac wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I don't have a problem with them changing fonts. I personally think Times isn't a great choice for the reasons articulated in that statement (something open and more legible seems better to me), but I don't think it's a horrible choice either (it's standard and efficient with space). If the State Department wants to use a certain font, it's their prerogative. What bothers me about the decision is their ra…

> The whole decision seems like a joke to me and a lost opportunity to set a decent design standard. That would require that the individuals involved actually have taste . Instead, as with everything else from this administration, it's a toot on their favourite dog whistle.

[flagged]

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#94

Post by tevon »

austy69 wrote: post #33

> 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 evid…

Completely agree. This statement is immediately disproven by the authors following points. Eg pointing out that the supreme court, and other authoritative bodies exclusively use serif fonts...

Of course there is no "a priori", the general public doesn't know what a letter is "a priori" until they are taught. At the same time they are taught which fonts are formal and authoritative and which are not.

Everyone knows Comic Sans is not appropriate for a legal brief. No matter if that is "a priori" or not.

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#95

Post by 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?

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#96

Post by tolerance »

moron4hire wrote: post #87
tolerance wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? One quality is inherent, the other inherited. The typeface was developed with banality in mind and presumably become popular because of its utility in this respect. The ensuing popularity in word processors and on the Web likely lead to the idea that it’s more professional than others. Again, the author: > Indeed, the stronger explanation for Times New Roman’s long reign isn’t aesthetic excellence, but pract…

Because font choice outside of large strokes like fantasy fonts is meaningless. All of this exposition only works if people are literate in typography enough to get it. Most people can't even understand literalist art, say nothing about the symbolism of typography. It's like how the Victorians invented a whole meaning categorization to different species of flowers and then acted like it was universal law. It's a secr…

Could you clarify what you mean by “meaningless”?

How you can conceive a literate society that is not affected by type. The fact that general literacy is apparently declining is beside the point but we remain surrounded by letters and words, the shape of which determine how we comprehend what they point out. Planes, signs, screens depend on font choice to be effective. Newspapers and memoranda too.

The degrees may vary but the significance of a font choice just can’t be as simple as you make it seem. Just only to the extent of the value the public ascribes to the type-bearing object. Granted, we may be assigning too much to US State Department documents. But who’s to say?

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#97

Post by sgnelson »

tevon wrote: post #92

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 t…

I agree with the critique on the "socially constructed" part of this article.

I'd also add that since it was literally The Times newspaper which created the font, and it was considered one of the papers of record for the time (no pun intended), the font was probably designed to have a sense of accuracy, truth and authority. In other words, the institution that created the font is very much part of the socially constructed aspect of this font. In this case giving it that air of authority via it's relationship with a newspaper of record.

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#98

Post by spatley »

magnio wrote: post #11

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.

Further, Public Sans was developed by the US govt under the first Trump administration and appears to be an excellent font. That seems to be a wise choice against TNR or Calibri on multiple angles.

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#99

Post by 2b3a51 »

coffeefirst wrote: post #22

Well, the correct traditional font for State should really be Courier, because “Real America” used typewriters for all correspondence.

I was sort of thinking that these 'cables' ought really to be rendered in a teletypewriter font[1], but then having lower case would be anachronistic.

My teacher training (quite a few decades ago) suggested that for people with dyslexia you should set large quantities of text;

# right ragged so inter-word spacing constant;

# without hyphenation;

# with line spacing larger than word spacing;

# and broken up into sections with headings that describe the content of the section.

(As it happens I rarely need to use large chunks of text in basic maths teaching)

[1] https://www.almendron.com/tribuna/wp-content/uploads/2021/04... Kennan's notorious cable from 1946 looks as if it would have severe consequences to me.

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#100

Post by mlsu »

It's so frustrating. We already created a font for government communication, Public Sans. It looks great, it's very strong, neutral, readable, and respectable. Clearly a lot of effort went into making it accessible etc.

But we have to throw that away because the wrong party was in charge when it happened.

https://public-sans.digital.gov/

I'm so sick of this RETVRN crap happening seemingly everywhere. Yes, public buildings and typefaces and etc are uglier than they used to be. That's not because our aesthetic standards changed; it's because we financialized and technologized the entire economy and made it impossible to make an honest living as a plasterworker, typesetter, designer, etc. Those old buildings are beautiful because they were made by human beings who were allowed to develop their skills and aesthetic preferences outside of a completely efficientized, marketized, computerized system.

When we RETVRN by telling the machine to output different aesthetic preferences, it will emit a cheap simulacra of the beauty of the past. Which imo is infinitely more depressing than any of the modern crap we have now. Think Kentucky suburb McMansions, everywhere, forever. That's what these guys want.

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