Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts • Hacker News Board

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#161

Post by potato3732842 » Wed, Dec 31, 2025, 2:02 PM UTC

derbOac wrote: post #43

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.…

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 reasoning is so absurd I find myself wondering whether the alleged rationales are real or if the political people said "yeah, this recommendation is fine we'll do it but you need to come up with a way to tie it into my talking points"

Like are we switching fonts because DEI or are we switching fonts because fonts and pretending it's DEI?

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#162

Post by potato3732842 » Wed, Dec 31, 2025, 2:16 PM UTC

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]

The leftists think trump is a dictator. The right thinks trump is an irresponsibly spending warmonger. And everyone thinks the entire damn government is rife with all sorts of bad things.

What Trump and Friends(TM) are doing here is basically stylizing the government to mimic things people associate with legitimacy since that's in short supply to the government these days. Serif fonts that harken back to when documents were for serious things and handwriting was the less formal format. Greco-roman government buildings and other "antique-ish" styles that subtly imply the legitimacy of the institution therein always has been and always will be.

Likewise I would bet a lot of money that over the next 20yr we don't see many/any 1920s-60s government buildings renovated to remove that aesthetic because people associate those decades with government that seemingly was functional.

Your last paragraph has it totally backwards. The government puts on this huge stupid show of looking big and important and fancy in order to distance itself from the fact that at the end of the day it's an organization that's fairly capriciously deploying violence.

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#163

Post by WillAdams » Wed, Dec 31, 2025, 3:29 PM UTC

tolerance wrote: post #134

WillAdams wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love Univers as well, but the _Q_ is just _too_ weird by most folks perceptions.

What do you think about Gerstner-Programm? https://forgotten-shapes.com/gerstner-programm/gerstnerprogr...

It's fine, but I'm not seeing that it has the wonderful width and breadth and depth of variations which Univers is noted for:

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5affbc175417fc...

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#164

Post by ericmay » Wed, Dec 31, 2025, 4:31 PM UTC

potato3732842 wrote: post #162

ericmay wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The leftists think trump is a dictator. The right thinks trump is an irresponsibly spending warmonger. And everyone thinks the entire damn government is rife with all sorts of bad things. What Trump and Friends(TM) are doing here is basically stylizing the government to mimic things people associate with legitimacy since that's in short supply to the government these days. Serif fonts that harken back to when documen…

Well, to encapsulate your point here - you don’t believe in the legitimacy of government so of course any attempt by the government to legitimize itself you’d find disagreeable. Is that right?

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#165

Post by ericmay » Wed, Dec 31, 2025, 4:35 PM UTC

donkeybeer wrote: post #144

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…

Because its not real. He is completely right its a 19th century cargo cult of classicism. Its a modern anachronistic mashup of various old styles, I can bet if you asked an actual Greek or Roman era expert they will say these buildings combine elements 500 600 years apart. I like how it looks but its also lazy and cheesy, I can't blame people who think we need more styles.

You’re missing the point. The styles aren’t meant to be 1-1 matches of Greek or Roman architecture, they’re rather good attempts at building and designing our governments buildings which that they harken to where our legal and cultural traditions hail from. That’s why the Capitol looks the way it does.

I’m not sure how that’s lazy or cheesy. I’m certainly open minded to other styles but they need to be rooted in western civilization. Otherwise you wind up with silly things like replicas of the Eiffel Tower in weirdly designed and inappropriate little French mockup towns, or you wind up with the lowest common denominator - Wal-Mart and strip malls.

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#166

Post by ericmay » Wed, Dec 31, 2025, 4:36 PM UTC

redwall_hp wrote: post #147

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…

> 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. Carolingian architecture didn't just cargo cult, they literally pilfered Roman columns and integrated them into anachronistic designs. If I recall my art history class correctly, the columns from Charlemagne's Palatine Chapel were "repurposed" (looted) from a…

Yea great example and really cool building. Too bad we don’t build nice things anymore. It’s a shame our oligarch class is so uncultured and stupid.

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#167

Post by ericmay » Wed, Dec 31, 2025, 4:39 PM UTC

enaaem wrote: post #152

ericmay wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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.

What’s an example that you’re thinking of? I think this can make sense - I mean if you have a town of 5,000 people and a government office there or something you probably don’t need a big, giant, building (unless that’s the message you’re trying to send). It’s also impractical from a cost-standpoint.

Federal buildings though should have gravitas and signify importance. If they don’t, and/or we think the government isn’t important, I’ll take my tax dollars back, thank you very much.

You can liken this to how western countries are leaving Christianity. Who can believe in God when you drive a Jeep to your mega church next to Costco and everyone is wearing sweatpants? (I’m not particularly spiritual but I see the problems here)

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#168

Post by potato3732842 » Wed, Dec 31, 2025, 6:07 PM UTC

ericmay wrote: post #164

potato3732842 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The leftists think trump is a dictator. The right thinks trump is an irresponsibly spending warmonger. And everyone thinks the entire damn government is rife with all sorts of bad things. What Trump and Friends(TM) are doing here is basically stylizing the government to mimic things people associate with legitimacy since that's in short supply to the government these days. Serif fonts that harken back to when documen…

Well, to encapsulate your point here - you don’t believe in the legitimacy of government so of course any attempt by the government to legitimize itself you’d find disagreeable. Is that right?

Legitimacy isn't a binary, especially not across a nation of many millions.

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#169

Post by tracker1 » Wed, Dec 31, 2025, 6:10 PM UTC

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 […

Before the recent post on Public Sans, I was unaware of the typeface myself... I think it's absolutely beautiful myself, I wish it were more complete for use outside US contexts. I like it a bit better than Robot Sans, which has been my go to for web content for about a decade.

That said, I feel the issues come to play with the differences between what is seen on a screen and what persists in physical print. I do wish they'd picked a better font in both cases... My own assumption about the Calibri switch was that it was the MS Office default, meaning one less step, but I guess that default itself has changed since.

My only preference would be for a typeface that has a free/open license for broad usage as a default. Also, given the nature of printed documents would probably lean towards at least some serifs to make reading easier, especially to better distinguish some of the more problematic characters.

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#170

Post by tracker1 » Wed, Dec 31, 2025, 6:17 PM UTC

sgnelson wrote: post #95

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?

It seems to me that you'd need to create something with a different name that supported more appropriate weight settings for screen and modern printing.

That said, as soon as you head down this path, more variance will occur and in the end you'll have something even more different than just accounting for what happens to the text on news paper print.

I might have suggested Roboto Serif or another OFL (or other open licensed) font face myself.