The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, recently dismissed the Calibri typeface, reversing a Joe Biden-era directive and instructing diplomats to return to Times New Roman, which has been the State Department’s official typeface for nearly 20 years. Calibri had been adopted to improve accessibility for readers with disabilities. The return to Times New Roman signals a shift back to a typeface that is universally available, though far from the most refined option.
Evolution of typefaces
Early books were accessible only to the privileged few, as they were expensive and time-consuming to produce. In the Middle Ages, manuscripts were hand-copied by monks, often embellished with ornate detail. The introduction of movable type to Europe transformed this process, allowing multiple copies to be printed quickly and making books available to the wider public.
Among the first major printed books, the Gutenberg Bible, was produced in the 1450s by Johannes Gutenberg in Germany. By the 1470s, William Caxton had introduced the printing press to England and become the country’s first book retailer.
Early typefaces were Blackletter styles that reflected the handwriting of scribes. By the 1470s, printers began seeking simpler styles that were better suited to new printing technologies and the paper available at the time. Inspiration came from the calligraphy of Italian Humanist writers, whose letterforms drew from Roman inscriptions such as those on Trajan’s Column. The shift from dense Blackletter script to Roman serif typefaces marked a dramatic evolution in style.
Arrival of Times New Roman
Times New Roman emerged from the dissatisfaction of Stanley Morison, an avid reader of The Times in London. Criticising the newspaper’s existing typeface as difficult to read and unrepresentative of its identity, Morison wrote an article urging change. The newspaper then commissioned him to design a new typeface, which he based on the Plantin typeface created by the British Monotype Corporation in 1913.
Times New Roman was designed to fit the narrow column widths of The Times, offering high legibility in tight spaces. However, when stretched across a full page, it reads less comfortably. More open typefaces, such as Georgia, perform better at wider column widths. In newspapers and official communication, Times New Roman conveys a sense of intellectual seriousness and quiet confidence, while maintaining an air of neutrality. Georgia shares some of these qualities but feels more conservative and safely familiar.
Cheaper and easily accessible
Times New Roman excels at fitting more words into a column without appearing cluttered. Its narrower design and tighter letter spacing make it economical both in print and ink use — a key reason it became widespread when home printers rose in popularity.
The US government once relied on Courier, a monospaced typeface with low contrast that is harder to read. Courier remained the State Department’s official font until January 2004, when it was replaced by Times New Roman.
The monospaced typeface was widely used in tabular material, technical documentation, and word processing. It was designed in the mid-1900s by Howard Kettler of IBM as a typewriter face, and was later redrawn by Adrian Frutiger for the IBM Selectric series. Though there are no official documents to show when the font was first used by the White House, it was born around the period of Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Contribution of Apple and Windows
Another reason for the ubiquity of Times New Roman is its generous licensing. In 1984, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs touted the Macintosh as an ideal computer for education. It shipped with the New York typeface, designed by Susan Kare in 1983, which closely resembled Times New Roman. Windows 3.1 included Times New Roman itself, and eventually the typeface became standard on both Windows and Mac systems.
Times New Roman is, in many ways, an almost perfect font — inexpensive to license and versatile despite being narrower than many bold styles. Helvetica is another excellent choice, but far less universally available due to more restrictive licensing.
Calibri, meanwhile, was created for Microsoft in the early 2000s by Berlin-based type designer Lucas de Groot, who was invited to propose a new sans serif typeface. Microsoft adopted Calibri as the default font for its Office suite in 2007.
Whether it is wise to dismiss a typeface because of a government’s stance towards diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility is a debate for another day. What remains clear is that better alternatives to Times New Roman exist, among them Helvetica and Garamond.
Mathures Paul