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Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri

reuters.com

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Re: Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri

#521

Post by throw__away7391 »

chinathrow wrote: post #419

> U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday ordered diplomats to return to using Times New Roman font in official communications, calling his predecessor Antony Blinken's decision to adopt Calibri a "wasteful" diversity move, according to an internal department cable seen by Reuters. What a waste of government time and spending.

I read the title of this and as I could not wrap my head around the idea of "Rubio" here actually meaning Marco Rubio, I assumed this was a font name, but also laughing to myself just how hilariously absurd it would be for the Secretary of State to involved in picking fonts...only to click the link and discover that yes, it is exactly that absurd.

Re: Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri

#522

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

JetSetWilly wrote: post #506
miltonlost wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it "signalling" when the left's change was for an accessibility reason, to enable more people to be able to easily read? Signaling means there's no tangible benefit to the change, so the Blinken's switch to a sans-serif font would not be signaling. Rubio, however, specifically pointed out the symbolic (and malicious) gesture of his whole switch back to Times New Roman. The left didn't react pettily. Please stop th…

[flagged]

Note that, even if that's all true (and I do agree that studies should have been conducted), the two positions are:

a) We made this change because we think it will help certain people

and

b) We made this change because we fundamentally disagree with attempts to help certain people, whether effective or not

I think b) is a lot worse than a). Or, to put it another way, has the current administration demonstrated a benefit from this change, or are they behaving at least as badly as "the left"?

Re: Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri

#523

Post by nabla9 »

LucasFonts wrote: post #475

Our studio, LucasFonts, designed Calibri. Here are our CEO Luc(as) de Groot’s thoughts on the matter: The decision to abandon Calibri on the grounds of it being a so-called “wasteful diversity font” is both amusing and regrettable. Calibri was specifically designed to enhance readability on modern computer screens and was selected by Microsoft in 2007 to replace Times New Roman as the default font in the Office suite…

I think we all can agree that Comic Sans MS reflects the current US government best, both spiritually and aesthetically.

Re: Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri

#524

Post by croes »

klez wrote: post #457
ksynwa wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calibri is woke?

The point being that if the change to Calibri has been done to improve accessibility (hence: inclusion) that makes it woke. Which is stupid, of course, especially considering that sans-serif fonts improve readability on screens for most people, not for a minority. EDIT: extraneous "don't" in the middle of a sentence

Many things labeled as woke benefit the masses like environmental protection.

I guess people like to stay asleep.

Will be a rough awakening

Re: Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri

#525

Post by oblio »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #478
praptak wrote: post #358

Calibri was supposedly easier to read by people with disabilities. While this itself is debatable, that's not the reasoning behind the font switch. The mere attempt at making life easier for disadvantaged people is labeled DEI and as such cannot be tolerated by this administration.

More charitably, the signaling could be: “keep the government as small as possible, but no smaller than that”, i.e. use things that basically mostly work and quit expending resources addressing every edge case, particularly when it’s performative (slight font variations) rather than obvious (a ramp to get into a public building)

Microsoft Office (and Windows) changed the default font more than a decade ago.

Changing it back is the exact definition of performative work.

Edit: 19 years ago. Almost 2 decades ago!

Re: Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri

#526

Post by adrian_b »

zzo38computer wrote: post #55

Calibri font has "I" and "l" the same, according to Wikipedia. A better font should avoid characters being too similar (such as "I" and "l" and "1"). Another issue is due to the font size and font metrics, how much space it will take up on the page, to be small enough to avoid wasting paper and ink but also not too small to read. So, there are multiple issues in choosing the fonts; however, Times New Roman and Calibr…

You are right, but if legibility had been the reason for change, Times New Roman is a rather poor choice, even if better than Calibri.

Among Microsoft typefaces, Georgia would have been much better than Times New Roman, especially when read on displays, but even when printed.

There are of course even better choices, but Georgia is a familiar typeface for most people, it is similar enough to Times New Roman and the older versions of Georgia are free to use by anybody.

Georgia is not as condensed as Times New Roman, but here Times New Roman is the anomaly, as it is more condensed than a normal font, for the purpose of fitting within narrow newspaper columns.

From Windows 3.0 to Windows 98, I have used Times New Roman as my main text font in documents, because Windows did not include anything better, but immediately after the introduction of the superior Georgia I replaced Times New Roman with it for some years, until eventually I stopped relying on the bundled typefaces and I have bought some typefaces that I liked more, for use in all my documents. (Windows 3.0 did not have yet TTF fonts, with which the licensed Times New Roman was introduced later, but it already had a metrically equivalent Times font).

Re: Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri

#527

Post by Zanfa »

moltopoco wrote: post #469
chinathrow wrote: post #419

> U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday ordered diplomats to return to using Times New Roman font in official communications, calling his predecessor Antony Blinken's decision to adopt Calibri a "wasteful" diversity move, according to an internal department cable seen by Reuters. What a waste of government time and spending.

From the article: > A cable dated December 9 sent to all U.S. diplomatic posts said that typography shapes the professionalism of an official document and Calibri is informal compared to serif typefaces. > "To restore decorum and professionalism to the Department’s written work products and abolish yet another wasteful DEIA program, the Department is returning to Times New Roman as its standard typeface," the cable s…

> To restore decorum and professionalism

Given the complete absence of either in the current administration, this is clearly not the real reason. So “woke” is the only explanation left.

Re: Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri

#528

Post by mikkupikku »

ksynwa wrote: post #440
chinathrow wrote: post #419

> U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday ordered diplomats to return to using Times New Roman font in official communications, calling his predecessor Antony Blinken's decision to adopt Calibri a "wasteful" diversity move, according to an internal department cable seen by Reuters. What a waste of government time and spending.

Calibri is woke?

It's just ragebaiting. Don't take the bait.

If I say I bought a yellow car, nobody cares. If I say I bought a yellow car to troll the libtards, now everybody is mad even though what I said makes no sense and it all has little consequence anyway.

Re: Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri

#529

Post by butchcassidi »

nabla9 wrote: post #523
LucasFonts wrote: post #475

Our studio, LucasFonts, designed Calibri. Here are our CEO Luc(as) de Groot’s thoughts on the matter: The decision to abandon Calibri on the grounds of it being a so-called “wasteful diversity font” is both amusing and regrettable. Calibri was specifically designed to enhance readability on modern computer screens and was selected by Microsoft in 2007 to replace Times New Roman as the default font in the Office suite…

I think we all can agree that Comic Sans MS reflects the current US government best, both spiritually and aesthetically.

I would rather see Wingdings.

Re: Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri

#530

Post by lo_zamoyski »

nabla9 wrote: post #523
LucasFonts wrote: post #475

Our studio, LucasFonts, designed Calibri. Here are our CEO Luc(as) de Groot’s thoughts on the matter: The decision to abandon Calibri on the grounds of it being a so-called “wasteful diversity font” is both amusing and regrettable. Calibri was specifically designed to enhance readability on modern computer screens and was selected by Microsoft in 2007 to replace Times New Roman as the default font in the Office suite…

I think we all can agree that Comic Sans MS reflects the current US government best, both spiritually and aesthetically.

I would say it’s worse than that. Read Plato’s “Republic” and you may come to appreciate a much more expansive appropriateness of Comic Sans, beyond just the current administration.
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