Too Woke to Read

 I will admit to the fact that as a writer of fiction, I like to write in 12 pt Times New Roman. 

Why? I find it comforting. I've been using it for years. This is for writing fiction. This is a personal choice. And sure, it's a serif font, but I'm old and my brain works well with it. It's like putting on comfy clothing. It feels good. (I am writing this in Times New Roman 12 pt)

If I can't find Times New Roman, then Trebuchet or Garamond will do the job. Or Georgia, Baskerville or Helvetica  at a push. 

Of course, in my line of work, I'm used to fitting in with the font of the company's style. In Australia, larger corporations will have their own bespoke font added to the font suite. If you can't use that for some reason (often in licensed publishing software) an alternative will be sanctioned in the branding policy - in most cases this will be Calibri, Trebuchet or Times New Roman. 

In the last decade, there's been a move towards sans serif fonts. Look at Microsoft, which has moved its default font from Calibri to Aptos. Segoe, choice of font for the Atlassian suite, is an annoying outlier. Calibri is a thinner, serif free version of Aptos. If you work in projects, Segoe is the allegedly friendly font of Jira, Confluence and other Atlassian products. Aptos is the default font of most AI, and Microsoft, being the dictator of fonts, has run with this. 

And sure, I whine wherever Microsoft, or whatever company change their fonts. For me, this normally means having to go over all of the materials I've been working on for six months then go through and change the fonts. It sucks. (Did you know that most large companies pay a hell of a lot of money to update their fonts every few years, partly as a security feature - it's a good way to pick up whether you're being scammed.) It also lends itself to how the material is being consumed. For online resources, sans serif - your Aptos, Segoe or Calibri work best. 

Also, I get that sans serif fonts are reportedly easier to read.

Still, for me, Times New Roman 12 pt is my go-to font. 

But, and here is the big but, when you hear that the American Government are going back to use Times New Roman, from Calibri, because Calibri is a DEI nonsense typeface, my hackles rise. 

Seriously - it's not a good thing to have a clear, readable typeface for the country to read? Not that it makes that much difference, but it will mean somebody like me will have to go through a multitude of documents and make the switch. It's a shit job. 

Then again, why are the U.S. Government demanding that everything be written in the Courier typeface, so it looks like everything is written on a manual typewriter by a young, single woman in the typing pool who will be fired once she settles on marrying a man who will treat her like crap after she pushes out for him two point six babies, if she is allowed to get maternity care through her problematic pregnancy...

Moving back to this plain, dull, white-bread font feels like a regressive move. It is a regressive move, but hey, that's the USA for you at the moment. With their current president, maybe they should write everything in Comic Sans... well known as the crayon alternative of the typeface world. 

Reading back on this, I really do have some firm opinions about fonts and typefaces. 

I really should get a life. 

Today's song: