White House Switch Highlights Typeface As Part Of Brand Messaging
A version of this article was originally published in Company Blog
Typefaces are vital to creating a brand’s identity and, while they make headlines, they rarely make news. Typefaces became a hot topic at the end of 2025, however, when the White House announced that the federal government was dropping the use of Calibri in favor of Times New Roman in diplomatic correspondence.
The news might have been met with a yawn in other years, but the directive sent to diplomats around the world, titled “Return to Tradition: Times New Roman 14-Point Font Required for All Department Paper,” concluded with this widely reported statement: “Switching to Calibri achieved nothing except the degradation of the Department’s official correspondence. So, to restore decorum and professionalism to the Department’s written work products and abolish yet another wasteful DEIA [Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility] program, the Department is returning to Times New Roman as its standard typeface.”
The Biden Administration adopted Calibri in 2023 on the recommendation of the U.S. State Department’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion, which the Trump Administration closed in January 2025. Calibri is a san-serif typeface, which means it doesn’t have small projections at the ends of letters and has wider letter spacing. Described as a clean, modern-looking typeface, Calibri is supposed to be easier to read for people with impaired vision or other issues such as dyslexia. The State Department directive notes that serif typefaces like Times New Roman, which the federal government used, among others, prior to 2023, “are generally perceived to connote tradition, formality, and ceremony.”
The switch spotlights how typefaces are selected to shape the way a brand—in this case, the White House—wants to be perceived. Labelling the adoption of Calibri as a “wasteful DEIA programs” suggests typeface selection is a moral or at least cultural imperative. Based on its recent typeface choices, it’s pretty clear that, at the very least, the White House is trying to present itself as traditional and non-progressive.
Let’s stop for a moment to address the difference between a typeface and a font. Many people, including me until very recently, use the two terms interchangeably. “A font is the formatting of a typeface on a page and typography is the art of arranging fonts and typefaces for a certain impact,” explains Charlie Birch, owner and founder of Humaniz Collective, a brand strategy consulting firm. So, for example, Calibri is the name of the typeface and Calibri normal, Calibri bold, and Calibri italic are font variations. “It’s also not uncommon for people to refer to typefaces as font families,” she adds.
Building a brand identity involves many layers, from developing engaging content, a compelling narrative and a distinctive voice, and choosing eye-catching designs, color palette and visuals. Typeface selection is also multilayered and includes making decisions about using serif or sans-serif typefaces, spacing between letters, letter width and level of readability. Together, these typeface decisions create an impression—hopefully the one that the brand wants to project, says Birch.
Times New Roman was created for The Times of London, after a typeface designer called the British newspaper’s look outdated and hard to read. The Times rolled out the new typeface in 1932 and other newspapers, as well as book publishers and magazines, eventually adopted it. Nearly 100 years later, Times New Roman elicits mixed reactions, depending on the audience. “Times New Roman is probably the most classical conservative, traditionalist typeface,” Birch notes. On the other hand, it can also be seen as a throwback to the age of the manual typewriter and newspaper typesetting. Calibri, developed for Microsoft in the early 2000s, is more representative of the modern keyboard, she says.
There’s nothing wrong with creating typeface guidelines as part of an overall design strategy. “As with any design, you hope it captivates the audience,” says Birch. “The visual components are there to magnetize and captivate, but they’re not supposed to be the focal point.”
Birch points out that the real issue with the typeface switch is that it’s imposing a moral or cultural narrative “around something that really should be buzzing along under the radar.”
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