Michael Crowley and Hamed Aleaziz, reporting for The New York Times:

Secretary of State Marco Rubio waded into the surprisingly fraught politics of typefaces on Tuesday with an order halting the State Department’s official use of Calibri, reversing a 2023 Biden-era directive that Mr. Rubio called a “wasteful” sop to diversity.

While mostly framed as a matter of clarity and formality in presentation, Mr. Rubio’s directive to all diplomatic posts around the world blamed “radical” diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs for what he said was a misguided and ineffective switch from the serif typeface Times New Roman to sans serif Calibri in official department paperwork.

It’s not every day that the word “typeface” shows up in a headline about politics in the news. So in Marco Rubio’s eyes, accessibility is lumped in with “diversity,” I suppose as part of DEIA.

I have never liked Calibri, which was designed by Lucas de Groot for Microsoft. There’s a certain group of humanist sans typefaces that don’t seem great to my eyes. I am more of a gothic or grotesque guy. Regardless, I think Calibri’s sin is less its design, but more its ubiquity. You just know that someone opened up Microsoft Word and used the default styling when you see Calibri. I felt the same about Arial when that was the Office default.

John Gruber managed to get the full text of the Rubio memo and says that the Times article paints the move in an unfair light:

Rubio’s memo wasn’t merely “mostly framed as a matter of clarity and formality in presentation”. That’s entirely what the memo is about. Serif typefaces like Times New Roman are more formal. It was the Biden administration and then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken who categorized the 2023 change to Calibri as driven by accessibility.

…

Rubio’s memo makes the argument — correctly — that aesthetics matter, and that the argument that Calibri was in any way more accessible than Times New Roman was bogus. Rubio’s memo does not lash out against accessibility as a concern or goal. He simply makes the argument that Blinken’s order mandating Calibri in the name of accessibility was an empty gesture. Purely performative, at the cost of aesthetics.

Designer and typographer Joe Stitzlein had this to say on LinkedIn:

The administration’s rhetoric is unnecessary, but as a designer I find it hard to defend Calibri as an elegant choice. And given our various debt crises, I don’t think switching fonts is a high priority for the American people. I also do not buy the accessibility arguments, these change depending on the evaluation methods.

Stitzlein is correct. It’s less the typeface choice and more other factors.

An NIH study from 2022 found no difference in readability between serif and sans serif typefaces, concluding:

The serif and sans serif characteristic inside the same font family does not affect usability on a website, as it was found that it has no impact on reading speed and user preference.

Instead, it’s letter spacing (aka tracking) that has been proven to help readers with dyslexia. In a paper from 2012 by Marco Zorzi, et. al., they say:

Extra-large letter spacing helps reading, because dyslexics are abnormally affected by crowding, a perceptual phenomenon with detrimental effects on letter recognition that is modulated by the spacing between letters. Extra-large letter spacing may help to break the vicious circle by rendering the reading material more easily accessible.

Back to Joe Stitzlein’s point: typographic research outcomes depend on what and how you measure. In Legibility: How and why typography affects ease of reading, Mary C. Dyson details how choices in studies like threshold vs. speed vs. comprehension, ecological validity, x‑height matching, spacing, and familiarity can flip results—illustrating why legibility/accessibility claims shift with methodology.

While Calibri may have just been excised from the State Department, Times New Roman ain’t great either. It’s common and lacks any personality or heft. It doesn’t look anymore official than Calibri. The selection of Times New Roman is simply a continuation of the Trump administration’s bad taste, especially in typography.

But at the end of the day, average Americans don’t care. The federal government should probably get back to solving the affordability crisis and stop shooting missles at unarmed people sailing in dingys in the ocean.

I think these guidelines from Vercel are great. It’s a one-pager and very clearly written for both humans and AI. It reminds me of the old school MailChimp brand voice guidelines and Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines which have become reference standards.

Figma is adding to its keyboard shortcuts to improve navigation and selection for power users and for keyboard-only users. It’s a win-win that improves accessibility and efficiency. Sarah Kelley, product marketer at Figma writes:

For millions, navigating digital tools with a keyboard isn’t just about preference for speed and ergonomics—it’s a fundamental need. …

We’re introducing a series of new features that remove barriers for keyboard-only designers across most Figma products. Users can now pan the canvas, insert objects, and make precise selections quickly and easily. And, with improved screen reader support, these actions are read aloud as users work, making it easier to stay oriented.

Nice work!