Why Is Marco Rubio at Conflict With the Calibri Font?
He’s the slim kind.
Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP through Getty Pictures
If I needed to choose a phrase to explain Calibri, the sans-serif typeface that was the default font for Microsoft apps from 2007 to 2024, it will most likely be “inoffensive.”
Certain, Microsoft’s “extraordinarily readable” font has had its critics over time, however they’ve principally simply complained that it’s too plain, that it lacks character. I’d guess that for most individuals, Calibri turned a ubiquitous, inconsiderate a part of their regular life, from workplace memos to e-book experiences, and few most likely realized it was designed and applied to be a extra readable typeface on digital screens — which it has been. Even Microsoft has stated that clients didn’t actually have robust emotions about it, not like with different fonts. Everyone thought it was … tremendous. However it seems we have been all mistaken: In keeping with the Trump administration, this 21-year-old boring font is weak and woke.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday barred using Calibri on the State Division and introduced again the serif Instances New Roman, which was the company’s official font from 2004 to 2023. This was mandatory, he stated, to reverse the “wasteful” and distasteful shift to Calibri ordered by his Biden administration predecessor, Antony Blinken. Rubio alleged that change — which provoked little significant controversy on the time — was yet one more instance of woke radicalism run amok, for the reason that change was advisable by the State Division’s now-disbanded DEI workplace as a result of Calibri is taken into account to be simpler to learn for folks with disabilities like dyslexia or imaginative and prescient issues. Per the New York Instances report:
Whereas principally framed as a matter of readability and ritual in presentation, Mr. Rubio’s directive to all diplomatic posts around the globe blamed “radical” variety, fairness, inclusion and accessibility applications for what he stated was a misguided and ineffective swap from the serif typeface Instances New Roman to sans serif Calibri in official division paperwork.
In an “Motion Request” memo obtained by The New York Instances, Mr. Rubio stated that switching again to using Instances New Roman would “restore decorum and professionalism to the division’s written work.” Calibri is “casual” when in comparison with serif typefaces like Instances New Roman, the order stated, and “clashes” with the division’s official letterhead. …
Mr. Rubio’s directive, underneath the topic line “Return to Custom: Instances New Roman 14-Level Font Required for All Division Paper,” served as the newest try by the Trump administration to stamp out remnants of variety initiatives throughout the federal authorities. …
Echoing President Trump’s name for classical fashion in federal structure, Mr. Rubio’s order cited the origins of serif typefaces in Roman antiquity.
Julius Caesar would by no means have used Calibri, so neither ought to Donald Trump’s federal authorities, the place addressing the wants of the disabled is nowhere close to as vital as demonizing variety and fetishizing trad aesthetics.
