Time(s) for a change: State Division picks a brand new official typeface

Time(s) for a change: State Department picks a new official typeface

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Official correspondence from America’s diplomats is getting a little bit of a spruce-up subsequent month. From February 6, the US Division of State will undertake Microsoft’s sans serif Calibri in 14-point dimension “for all paper submitted to the Govt Secretariat,” based on The Washington Publish’s diplomacy reporter John Hudson.

The transfer sparked a considerably tendentious dialogue within the Ars digital workplace earlier at the moment. Within the cable, the State Division refers to Instances New Roman and Calibri as fonts. However teeeeeeechnically, it ought to have referred to Instances New Roman and Calibri as typefaces. A font, slightly, is the way you manipulate that typeface—altering the scale or weight, the character spacing, or making it italic, for instance.

“If we’re being pedantic (AND I AM!), a font is a clade of a typeface, I believe? And sure, whereas switching typefaces would possibly imply you’re additionally switching the model of textual content you’re utilizing, it’s not a semantically significant phrase,” mentioned a slightly pedantic colleague.

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