The correct typeface for the current U.S. administration would of course be Comic Sans or perhaps Comic Serif for double-super-serious documents.

Using either Calibri or Times New Roman makes it look like you did not put any thought into your brand and chose the default in Microsoft Word. The State department probably has certain constraints (i.e. they likely have to choose one of the fonts that ships with Microsoft Word, and possibly a subset of that that also ships on macOS), but they could definitely choose better than the default.

I find the narrow serif typefaces such as Century Schoolbook a bit harder to read than ones with more normal spacing, and I think the US government should optimize for legibility and accessibility over style in routine communications. Palatino or Garamond would probably be my choices.

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.

Wow, the sample shows that 15 point Calibri on official government documents was truly awful. In software when we make a mistake that causes some production issue the best first action is almost always to roll back. Maybe 14 pt TNR isn't the best, but rolling back to it is a defensible decision.

At some point in the past I read that serif fonts are better for readability, as the supports at the base of the letters form a line and help the eye stay “on track”. This is never mentioned in TFA, so I assume it’s an urban legend? Personally I much prefer serif fonts when reading longer texts.

"Healthcare pls"

edit for the silent downvoters:

The article was good for the topic at hand. My comment applies to the existence of the debate itself in the context of a failing first world country. For those unfamiliar, the meme is critical of both controlled opposition "sides" of our uniparty of capital interests.

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

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 [1]). But still banal more often than not.

I love Univers. But I don’t think there’s anyone in public office with enough influence and swagger to ever enforce it. At the same time I have a bad feeling about the attention that decisions like this draw and what it may lead to. The article does a great job at portraying the general incompetence in both parties.

I can imagine Beto O’Rourke somewhere dreaming about styling all government communiqués like a page out of Ray Gun. Planning his come back. To set anything issued from Ted Cruz’s office in Zapf Dingbats. War.

[1]: https://contemporary-home-computing.org/prof-dr-style/

Sadly, all that matters is it's free of any "DEI" connotations.

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. Calibri performs exceptionally well at small sizes and on standard office monitors, whereas serif fonts like Times New Roman create more visual disturbance. Although serif fonts work well on high-resolution displays, such as those found on modern smartphones, the serifs can introduce unnecessary visual noise on typical office screens and be particularly problematic for users with impaired vision, such as older adults.

Professional typography can be achieved with serif or sans serif fonts. However, that is not very easy with Times New Roman, a typeface older than the current president. Originally crafted in Great Britain for newspaper printing, Times was optimised for paper, with each letterform meticulously cut and tested for specific sizes. In the digital era, larger-size drawings were repurposed as models, resulting in a typeface that appears too thin and sharp when printed at a high quality.

Depending on the situation, fonts with serifs are often considered more classic, but they take more work to get right. While a skilled typographer can produce excellent results with Times New Roman, using the digital default version is not considered professional practice. This font only offers two weights, Regular and Bold, and the Bold version has a very different design that does not fit well. There are many better serif typefaces available. The digital version of Times New Roman, developed in the early days of computing, includes only minimal adjustments to letter pairs. This is particularly noticeable in all-capital words such as ‘CHICAGO’, where the spacing is inconsistent: the letters ‘HIC’ are tightly packed, while ‘CAG’ are spaced too far apart. By contrast, Calibri incorporates extensive spacing adjustments and language-specific refinements.

This decision takes the administration back to the past and back to bad.

(Microsoft could not rectify spacing issues in Times New Roman without altering the appearance of existing documents.)

> 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 evidence that I think supports the opposite than the author intended: the font being in used in The Times of London, which is indeed authoritative and professional despite it being written on cheap paper.

On another note, I would throw up if I had to read legal documents all day in a sans-serif font.

As for Calibri, even Microsoft has moved on. They designed a successor font family for even better readability, and that happened before the State Department changed to Calibri. It also has serif variants.

https://microsoft.design/articles/a-change-of-typeface-micro...

No knock on Calibri, which I admire.

(edited to put the link on its own line.)