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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

#151

Post by 0xEF »

snickerbockers wrote: post #81
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.…

Honest question: do you have any financial stake in this? I'm assuming you don't get paid per-document or whatever but do you have any sort of income dependent on Microsoft shipping your font with outlook (whether as the default font or not)? I don't mean to accuse you of anything but to 99% of the population this is a complete nothingburger and it looks ridiculous that anybody would care (this cuts both ways btw I a…

I am farsighted, which worsens with each passing year. While I get around this online by making full use of browser options to enlarge text for me, etc, because everyone uses different fonts anyway, I can also kinda see the perspective shift to someone looking at this font switch as being just one of many parts of "an attack" on accessibility by the current administration. Their general attitude seems to be that if the change was made in the past to accommodate a particular group of people, in this case, those with poorer eyesight/trouble reading things on screens which were starting to inundate our lives at the time, then it's got to go because it somehow disrupts their status quo.

It's a silly stance for insecure men, which is why the brief uproar this change caused is so wildly ridiculous and adds to the pile of evidence illustrating that they are not serious leaders.

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#152

Post by enaaem »

ericmay wrote: post #93
halostatue wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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]

I prefer the protestant restrained aesthetic. Spiritual over material. Governmental buildings should be tastefully humble. It is a signal that the government is a servant of the people.

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#153

Post by pseudohadamard »

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.

Nah, it's just the US reinventing the German Antiqua-Fraktur dispute from more than a century ago, where only Fraktur was appropriate for expressing serious Germanic ideas. A sans typeface is un-German... ahh, un-American!

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#154

Post by kps »

jimbob45 wrote: post #131
kps wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Times is one of the three original Postscript core typefaces, along with Helvetica and Courier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_typefaces_included_wit... Best as I can tell, Windows 3.1 only really shipped with TNR and Courier. Weird that I don’t see Helvetica anywhere on that list.

MS went with Arial as a metrics-compatible substitute for Helvetica.

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#155

Post by [deleted] »

pseudohadamard wrote: post #153
halostatue wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Nah, it's just the US reinventing the German Antiqua-Fraktur dispute from more than a century ago, where only Fraktur was appropriate for expressing serious Germanic ideas. A sans typeface is un-German... ahh, un-American!

[deleted]

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#157

Post by LucasFonts »

loughnane wrote: post #37
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.

We understand the point you are making. However, it was important for us to contribute to the discussion (not only on HN) about one of our fonts, too. We can’t provide the full picture of the story, but we can at least offer our (typographical) perspective, which could be helpful. Some people have asked about us: we are a small, independent type design studio. And we have no negative or positive financial outcome from this headline. However, we do benefit from free publicity. By the way, we wish you a good 2026 from Berlin!

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#158

Post by anthk »

ericmay wrote: post #140
anthk wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an European, seeing modern American airports with Greco-Roman architecture makes the environment tacky as hell. As something from Las Vegas.

As an American I think they’re tacky too. That style of architecture for an airport doesn’t make sense really. Well. I bet it could be pulled off. But the “architects” designing the airports are the same people designing Greco-Roman architecture on disfigured American McMansions.

Art Decó, on the other hand, would look pretty Americana and elegant for your buildings. It's basically the classical American city depiction for Europeans (noir movies, Superman, old comic strips from newspapers...)

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#159

Post by ericmay »

gorgolo wrote: post #150
ericmay wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have another architectural style for western civilization which bases its institutions on Greece and Rome, I’d be interested in learning more about it. It’s not necessarily about a 19th century view of 2nd century BC architectural concepts (which itself is a bit of a farce of a comment) but more so about anchoring the longevity and legitimacy of governmental institutions to a historical heritage. Similarly I w…

I don’t mind the overall point of your argument, but it’s funny to see a claim that Americans have more reason to use Greco-Roman architecture than a Middle Eastern country. Classical Greek art actually took a lot of influence from the Middle East, and I believe Alexander actually reached te area around Afghanistan (and a Hellenistic kingdom existed there for a while), unlike America.

Well I wouldn’t argue Afghanistan is part of the Middle East culturally or geographically, but even if you did want to argue that, Alexander came and conquered that area for a little bit and then left. It wasn’t ever really culturally Greek.

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#160

Post by ericmay »

anthk wrote: post #158
ericmay wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American I think they’re tacky too. That style of architecture for an airport doesn’t make sense really. Well. I bet it could be pulled off. But the “architects” designing the airports are the same people designing Greco-Roman architecture on disfigured American McMansions.

Art Decó, on the other hand, would look pretty Americana and elegant for your buildings. It's basically the classical American city depiction for Europeans (noir movies, Superman, old comic strips from newspapers...)

Yea I don’t mind Art Deco at all. I think the car company Cadillac, which is based in the Detroit area, which is in my mind where I think of as the home of that style (even if it’s not), started including Art Deco as part of their design language and I think it’s a good use.
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