Democracy Dies in Darkness

A font feud brews after State Dept. picks Calibri over Times New Roman

‘The Times (New Roman) are a-Changin,’ read the subject line of a cable from Secretary of State Antony Blinken to U.S. embassies as part of an accessibility push

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January 18, 2023 at 1:23 p.m. EST
The State Department said fonts with serifs create “issues for individuals with disabilities.” (Anton Dos Ventos/Alamy Stock Photo)
5 min

The U.S. State Department is going sans serif: It has directed staff at home and overseas to phase out the Times New Roman font and adopt Calibri in official communications and memos, in a bid to help employees who are visually impaired or have other difficulties reading.

In a cable sent Tuesday and obtained by The Washington Post, Secretary of State Antony Blinken directed the department to use a larger sans-serif font in high-level internal documents, and gave the department’s domestic and overseas offices until Feb. 6 to “adopt Calibri as the standard font for all requested papers.”