Opinion Trump administration fights woke culture, this time with fonts
Different typefaces carry their own political charge. Such assumptions are precisely what designers play with when they create book covers, product packaging and logos, websites and advertising or publicity campaigns
Rubio’s decision, in keeping with the Donald Trump presidency’s overarching theme, prioritises what it sees as “tradition”. Make America Great Again, but with typography.
Not since the scientists at CERN used Comic Sans to announce the existence of the Higgs boson in 2012 has a choice of typeface caused such bafflement. Surely, there are more pressing matters for the US Secretary of State to address than the use of Calibri in diplomatic communication? But as Marco Rubio made clear in a recent memo, the state department’s decision to jettison the typeface adopted by the Joe Biden administration in 2023 in favour of Times New Roman is part of a larger war against wokeness: The previous government’s shift to Calibri was determined by its readability, especially among those with learning and partial visual disabilities. Rubio’s decision, in keeping with the Donald Trump presidency’s overarching theme, prioritises what it sees as “tradition”. Make America Great Again, but with typography.
Rubio may have inadvertently waded into the serif vs sans-serif debate that has long divided the typography-obsessed. Typefaces like Times New Roman and Georgia, which feature flourishes (serif) at the end of each stroke, hark back to a time when letters of the alphabet were cut into individual blocks that were laid out together to form the text to be printed in books — most of the typographical designs, including the 500-year-old Garamond family, descended from the intricate calligraphy used by monks in medieval European manuscripts. In sans serif typefaces like Calibri and Arial, on the other hand, the letters have no flourishes — no-nonsense and straightforward, they are considered ideal for an age when the printed page has been eclipsed by the digital screen on which serifs only add to visual clutter and noise.
But as Rubio notes, the importance of a typeface comes down to more than readability: Weight, height and other attributes, including serifs, carry connotations which can amplify or undermine the literal text. Serif types, for example, are seen as traditional, elegant and formal, while sans serif types are considered casual and unpretentious. Different typefaces also have their own political charge, as seen in a 2020 study published in Communication Studies, which found that serif types were seen as “conservative” and sans serif were regarded as “liberal” or neutral.
Such assumptions, of course, are precisely what designers play with when they create book covers, product packaging, websites and advertising campaigns. For example, newspapers, including this one, persist with the serif (as seen in Tiempos Text, the typeface in which this article is printed) because it conveys the gravitas and authority that the news demands. The use of the zany and cartoonish Comic Sans in CERN’s historic presentation about the Higgs boson, on the other hand, was jarring precisely because it undercut the momentousness of the occasion.
All of which is to say that the choice of typeface matters because it says so much more than immediately obvious. And what the US State Department’s decision to junk an accessible typeface in favour of a more “authoritative” one says about its own priorities is, of course, right there in black and white.
The writer is senior assistant editor, The Indian Express pooja.pillai@expressindia.com
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