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

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#181

Post by techblueberry » Fri, Jan 02, 2026, 11:03 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]

> In leftist popular culture there is a love for modernist style architecture, minimalism, and a disrespect for building beautiful things that cost a lot of money or time.

Which leftist popular culture? I mean sure, there was bauhaus, but it’s not like banks are putting up neo-gothic office buildings, they’re putting up spires of glass.

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#182

Post by cocodill » Sat, Jan 03, 2026, 6:10 AM UTC

constantcrying wrote: post #64

Sure, Times New Roman is not a great font and comes with many negative connotations. But having official government communication look like a highschoolers first digital essay is even worse. The obvious solution is doing what many large companies, as well as other governments are doing. Create your own Font. (e.g. https://styleguide.bundesregierung.de/sg-de/basiselemente/sc... https://www.ibm.com/plex/ )

The Bundesregierung just paid some one to reinvent Calibri and Cambria but in ugly.

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#183

Post by necovek » Sat, Jan 03, 2026, 5:30 PM UTC

roryirvine wrote: post #175

necovek wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I jumped into my GNU/Linux journey in late 90s, TNR was nowhere to be found, and I believe is only available through "ms-ttcorefonts" or whatever the package is called (IOW, Times New Roman actually comes from Microsoft). I believe "Times" is the venerable standard, and has been present on Unices and Macs since... forever. Now, TNR is the same metrics-wise IIRC, and thus it was always a recommendation to use a f…

It's a bit more complex than that! The font made by Monotype for The Times in 1931 was always called Times New Roman - it was, after all, a new Roman-style typeface for The Times. Linotype then made their own variant simply called Times Roman, which differed mostly in having slanted serifs. The Times switched to this in 1982. Both Monotype and Linotype produced digital versions, but Linotype's was initially slightly…

Thanks for the details, really appreciated!

Re: Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts

#184

Post by throwaway173738 » Sun, Jan 04, 2026, 1:50 AM UTC

Y_Y wrote: post #26

throwaway173738 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that poisonous? It sounds like Fraktur was rejected by Nazi Germany which isn’t a bad thing at all.

Do you know anything about the Nazis, other than that they are bad? They used Fraktur extensively before 1941 and it's closely associated with Nazi imagery. This is all explained in that link I posted. I prefer to think of Lie groups, but it's rife in the Nazi propaganda of the 30s, official documents etc.

Interesting. So it’s more a case of “we have always been at war with Oceania”