What’s new is old is New at State: Times New Roman is back

In Everything Is Semiotics, the Verge reports that the State Department is returning to Times New Roman as its default font. Biden’s SecState Antony Blinken converted State to Calibri, a sans serif font, in 2023. Microsoft Office switched from Calibri to its “bespoke” Aptos in 2024.

Does State rely heavily on content management systems that separate content from channel or is its approach "typewriter-lite"? Signs point to the latter.

And now, the internal memo: “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”

Times New Roman is standard on Windows OS, which uses ClearType that has historically sucked. ClearType failed to consistently display fonts and scale them correctly. Worse, TNR is easier read printed than on-screen, where serif fonts suffer. Also, it’s narrow, designed for column-inch scarcity, such as newspapers, and its styles (such as bold, italic) aren’t great.

Back to the memo: “This formatting standard aligns with the President’s One Voice for America’s Foreign Relations directive, underscoring the Department’s responsibility to present a unified, professional voice in all communications.”

Formatting doesn’t affect voice. No one who works with words thinks it does.