5 ms·

> Calibri has been the default font for all things Microsoft since 2007, when it stepped in to replace Times New Roman across Microsoft Office. It has served us

> Calibri has been the default font for all things Microsoft since 2007, when it stepped in to replace Times New Roman across Microsoft Office. It has served us all well, but we believe it’s time to evolve. My first question is "why". That doesn't seem to be answered anywhere in this blog post. I don't see any limitation with the current fonts. Changing the default seems like a solution looking for a problem.

prometheus76 6y ago
Change is progress! And progress is good! Please don't ask what we're progressing towards though. That's just rude.
jdsully 6y ago
The argument for Calibri was documents were being consumed more on the screen than on paper. Serif’d fonts were considered more legible on paper but not on low res screens of the day. An argument could be made that with high res screens now common we should return to the more legible serif’d fonts. Unfortunately serifs are seen as old fashioned so I doubt that will happen.
- layer8 6y ago
  An awful lot of users also still use lo-res displays, and that won’t be changing much because it will remain the cheaper option.
gwern 6y ago
I think OP explains it, actually: "Calibri has been the default font for all things Microsoft since 2007, when it stepped in to replace Times New Roman across Microsoft Office. It has served us all well, but we believe it’s time to evolve." "Erin and Wei: After years of Calibri—known for soft corners and narrow proportions—we were craving something very round, wide, and crisp, and the geometric genre felt like the right direction." Note: not, 'the users'. Not 'the readers'. There's nothing about inadequate multilingual support, performance optimizations from Variable Fonts, improved legibility as established by experiments, unusual design requirements like uniwidth or light traps, none of that. They are just yet another sans font. (Would even typographers be able to distinguish these 5 new fonts from the vast, enormous, groaning backlog of bland sans fonts which already exist?) It's all about we, the designers, being bored. I've become convinced after my past few years of reading design & typography material (like the last 3 decades of 'I Love Typography') that the real reason for most fonts being commissioned or purchased is simply because designers crave the novelty and are bored with their usual fonts, and it's essentially a kind of fringe benefit - like software developers going to conferences or being allowed to use the weird new language du jour for side projects. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean that you shouldn't take all of the dressed-up justifications much more seriously than, say, wine tasting descriptions.
- hulitu 6y ago
  > I think OP explains it, actually: > Note: not, 'the users'. Not 'the readers'. There's nothing about inadequate multilingual support, performance optimizations from Variable Fonts, improved legibility as established by experiments, unusual design requirements like uniwidth or light traps, none of that. They are just yet another sans font. (Would even typographers be able to distinguish these 5 new fonts from the vast, enormous, groaning backlog of bland sans fonts which already exist?) > It's all about we, the designers, being bored. Yes because office 365 is a finished product and there are no more bugs to be fixed. But it really shows how microsoft works: instead of fixing years old bugs they change the default font. > I've become convinced after my past few years of reading design & typography material (like the last 3 decades of 'I Love Typography') that the real reason for most fonts being commissioned or purchased is simply because designers crave the novelty and are bored with their usual fonts, and it's essentially a kind of fringe benefit - like software developers going to conferences or being allowed to use the weird new language du jour for side projects. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean that you shouldn't take all of the dressed-up justifications much more seriously than, say, wine tasting descriptions. Fully agree. All those fonts look the same and anyway, people just use templates.
  - gwern 6y ago
    The Wired article https://www.wired.com/story/calibri-default-font-microsoft-moving-on/ https://www.wired.com/story/calibri-default-font-microsoft-m... is even blunter! The product manager explicitly says the only problem with Calibri was that it was boring. (I was amused when, discussing the new fonts on IRC and whether boredom/novelty does indeed drive most sales/commissions/redesigns, someone recommended Butterick's Triplicate as a better font for coding, and the other person bought it then & there - and then said they'd review how much they liked it, just as soon as they figured out how to install new fonts...)
fortran77 6y ago
If you don't refresh your look every few years, you just start to look "old". I think it also drives upgrades--people stuck on old versions see a different look that seems "fresher" and they'll want to upgrade, too.

prometheus76 6y ago

Change is progress! And progress is good! Please don't ask what we're progressing towards though. That's just rude.

jdsully 6y ago

The argument for Calibri was documents were being consumed more on the screen than on paper. Serif’d fonts were considered more legible on paper but not on low res screens of the day. An argument could be made that with high res screens now common we should return to the more legible serif’d fonts. Unfortunately serifs are seen as old fashioned so I doubt that will happen.

layer8 6y ago
An awful lot of users also still use lo-res displays, and that won’t be changing much because it will remain the cheaper option.

gwern 6y ago

I think OP explains it, actually: "Calibri has been the default font for all things Microsoft since 2007, when it stepped in to replace Times New Roman across Microsoft Office. It has served us all well, but we believe it’s time to evolve." "Erin and Wei: After years of Calibri—known for soft corners and narrow proportions—we were craving something very round, wide, and crisp, and the geometric genre felt like the right direction." Note: not, 'the users'. Not 'the readers'. There's nothing about inadequate multilingual support, performance optimizations from Variable Fonts, improved legibility as established by experiments, unusual design requirements like uniwidth or light traps, none of that. They are just yet another sans font. (Would even typographers be able to distinguish these 5 new fonts from the vast, enormous, groaning backlog of bland sans fonts which already exist?) It's all about we, the designers, being bored. I've become convinced after my past few years of reading design & typography material (like the last 3 decades of 'I Love Typography') that the real reason for most fonts being commissioned or purchased is simply because designers crave the novelty and are bored with their usual fonts, and it's essentially a kind of fringe benefit - like software developers going to conferences or being allowed to use the weird new language du jour for side projects. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean that you shouldn't take all of the dressed-up justifications much more seriously than, say, wine tasting descriptions.

hulitu 6y ago
> I think OP explains it, actually: > Note: not, 'the users'. Not 'the readers'. There's nothing about inadequate multilingual support, performance optimizations from Variable Fonts, improved legibility as established by experiments, unusual design requirements like uniwidth or light traps, none of that. They are just yet another sans font. (Would even typographers be able to distinguish these 5 new fonts from the vast, enormous, groaning backlog of bland sans fonts which already exist?) > It's all about we, the designers, being bored. Yes because office 365 is a finished product and there are no more bugs to be fixed. But it really shows how microsoft works: instead of fixing years old bugs they change the default font. > I've become convinced after my past few years of reading design & typography material (like the last 3 decades of 'I Love Typography') that the real reason for most fonts being commissioned or purchased is simply because designers crave the novelty and are bored with their usual fonts, and it's essentially a kind of fringe benefit - like software developers going to conferences or being allowed to use the weird new language du jour for side projects. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean that you shouldn't take all of the dressed-up justifications much more seriously than, say, wine tasting descriptions. Fully agree. All those fonts look the same and anyway, people just use templates.
- gwern 6y ago
  The Wired article https://www.wired.com/story/calibri-default-font-microsoft-moving-on/ https://www.wired.com/story/calibri-default-font-microsoft-m... is even blunter! The product manager explicitly says the only problem with Calibri was that it was boring. (I was amused when, discussing the new fonts on IRC and whether boredom/novelty does indeed drive most sales/commissions/redesigns, someone recommended Butterick's Triplicate as a better font for coding, and the other person bought it then & there - and then said they'd review how much they liked it, just as soon as they figured out how to install new fonts...)

fortran77 6y ago

If you don't refresh your look every few years, you just start to look "old". I think it also drives upgrades--people stuck on old versions see a different look that seems "fresher" and they'll want to upgrade, too.