The Trump administration’s State Department, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, published a message on Wednesday with bad news for Telephone user and people with visual impairments. The change to the Calibri font for official communications will be reversed and replaced with the current Times New Roman font.
The change may seem like a small step, but it could have a significant impact on government documents that describe America’s response to domestic and international events and are read around the world.
Calibri became the agency’s official typeface in 2023 because it is considered a more readable typeface on digital screens. The decision to stop using Calibri can be quite a headache for some readers, which may explain why you probably don’t even use Times New Roman at work anymore.
Rubio’s instruction, “Return to Tradition: 14-point Times New Roman font required for all department documents,” says Times New Roman stands for “tradition, formality and ceremony.”
Rubio specifically blamed diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs for what he called the “waste” of using Calibri. Following this announcement, headlines hailed the decision as the latest global salvo. The government’s war against the restart.“.
Why Calibri?
During the Biden administration, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken decided to introduce the Calibri font, the same sans-serif font that became Microsoft’s standard font in 2007. The motivation was to improve accessibility and readability.
While Times New Roman is cute (and popular), the serifs (those extra elements on the edges) make reading difficult, especially for people with various visual disabilities, such as dyslexia.
For this reason, guidelines such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines used around the world recommend the use of sans-serif fonts that do not contain confusing elements such as wings and feet. Sans serif fonts like Calibri are easier to read on smaller screens like mobile phones and laptops and is less likely to cause this strained eyes when documents are viewed over a longer period of time.
Calibri is also a familiar font to most office workers. Before Microsoft Office switched to Aptos, a simpler font, it used Calibri as the default font for 17 years.
The new State Department guidance also runs counter to federal recommendations under the Americans with Disabilities Act. currently available herewhich still requires sans-serif fonts for text available on government websites.
How much does it cost to go back to Times New Roman?
It’s not every day that characters cause controversy, at least not in the political realm.
Since the government tends to print many of its documents around the world, switching to a clean font could have avoided the problem. Millions of dollars a year from the federal government in ink costs. While we can’t confirm how much cheaper it was for the State Department to use Calibri, it’s clear that a quick reminder could cost the government in more ways than one.