The US State Department move has led to a lot of internal discussion.
A strange decision of the US State Department is making waves globally. According to a report in The Washington Post, it has directed the staff to use the Calibri font instead of the traditional Times New Roman for official communications. The new directive will officially go into effect in February, the outlet further said. The Post report is based on a leaked memo sent by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken sent to all embassies. It is titled "The Times (New Roman) are a-Changin".
Mr Blinken told the employees that the change is meant to make the documents more accessible, adding that Times New Roman's serifs could "introduce accessibility issues for individuals with disabilities who use Optical Character Recognition technology or screen readers", said the Washington Post.
The memo clearly mentions that the employees should use 14-point Calibri font.
As per Adobe, fonts with serifs (small lines attached to letters) "can look authoritative, professional, and suggest the weight of history or experience". But in today's age, when a lot of reading is done on screens, sans serif fonts are considered to be more readable, as per University of North Carolina and Penn State.
The serif vs sans serif example from Adobe.
The change, though small, has led to discussion at the State Department, according to Washington Post. One officer the outlet spoke to said they were "anticipating an internal revolt", while another one said there is mild opposition against the move.
The debate over font has continued for decades in various organisations. Microsoft, which keeps launching new fonts, replaced Times New Roman with Calibri as the default font for documents in 2007. They too had given the same reasoning - that it was more readable.
In 2021, Microsoft launched five new fonts and announced plans to replace Calibri as its default font.