On Times New Roman
While casually scrolling X (formerly Twitter) over Easter weekend, I noticed that after hashtags related to the holiday and March Madness, “Times New Roman” was trending.
I scrolled and I scrolled and, while amused by Xs (presumably this is what one calls the things once referred to as “tweets”) like “Times New Roman, He has risen” and “‘Times New Roman’ is trending. This has something to do with prefects, centurions, and Easter, doesn’t it?” I couldn’t figure out why the font was being talked about.
Neither could those jumping on the trend, many of whom simply shared their font opinions because Times New Roman was trending. (One friendly Xer speculated the trend had something to do with a viral video comparing a sweet old British man to Times New Roman font.) I’m still not sure why #TimesNewRoman trended over Easter weekend, but the social media trend opened my eyes to something rather shocking: Times New Roman is a polarizing font.
“Times New Roman is in the top 10 of the ugliest fonts on earth,” a man named Ken Gortowski posted to X.
“For me it’s Georgia forever and always,” Thee Jocelyn Dee X-ed, along with a graphic singing that particular font’s praises. Some mocked the font, others simply stated joy at having other options. But it was a Canadian named Paul Fairie’s simple X post – “The Debut of Times New Roman, 1932,” and two images from The Times of London – that sent me down the proverbial rabbit hole.
Times New Roman has a rich history.
It’s the first font ever created by a publication, for that publication. In 1931, London’s The Times commissioned Stanley Morison, artistic adviser at the printing equipment company Monotype’s British branch, to redesign the newspaper’s font. Together with Victor Lardent, a lettering artist in The Times’ advertising department, Morison reimagined the newspaper’s 19th-century letters.
Morison and Lardent elongated letters and condensed the space between characters to fit more words on a page and made the characters heavier, for higher contrast between words and paper, for easier reading. They called the font Times New Roman.
Other outlets were slow to adopt Times New Roman, but once it hit the mainstream, there was nowhere but up for the font. Magazines and other publications entertained readers with stories printed in Times New Roman. Typists typed in Times New Roman. Microsoft Word made TNR its default font, and teachers and professors demanded papers be formatted a certain way, and that way was always “double-spaced, Times New Roman, 12 point.”
In part because of the font’s ubiquity, I’ve lived under the assumption that Times New Roman is superior to all other fonts. I’ve never questioned its status and was quite glad I was seated when I learned that in 2007 (2007! Almost two decades ago!), Microsoft replaced Times New Roman as its default font, opting for the sans-serif Calibri (which has since been usurped by a suite of fonts called Aptos). Last year, the U.S. State Department announced cool, clean-cut Calibri would replace Times New Roman in all official correspondence, because Calibri is easier for individuals with disabilities to read.
I appreciate that some fonts are more readable than others and am grateful to the plethora of fonts available for typing in. I once had a professor who typed everything, emails, tests, everything, in Papyrus, so help us God, and I admit to going through a phase during which I typed solely in Arial Narrow, a small, squished-together typeface my 30-something-year-old eyes can scarcely decipher. Variety is the spice of life, and some fonts are more appropriate in certain situations than others (can you imagine Coca-Cola spelled out in Comic Sans instead of its flowy Spencerian script?).
While many Xers hated on Times New Roman – “My preferred font is Verdana,” one woman Xed – I must admit there’s something comforting about its mundanity. Times New Roman isn’t flashy. It doesn’t evoke strong emotion (except, of course, for discourse online over the weekend) or create a mood, or suggest anything more than what is typed out.
Times New Roman simply delivers words from the page to your eyes and lets you, dear reader, do the rest.