Marco Rubio Removes State Department’s Official Typeface, Says It ‘Lacks Decorum’ — It’s One of the Most Common Fonts

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has undone one of his predecessor’s stylistic changes, ordering the State Department to abandon Calibri and return to Times New Roman for its official written communications.

In a memo issued on Tuesday, Dec. 9, Rubio directed that the department would no longer use the sans-serif font Calibri and would instead reinstate Times New Roman “as its standard typeface,” according to The New York Times.

The move, Rubio wrote, is intended “to restore decorum and professionalism to the Department’s written work products and abolish yet another wasteful D.E.I.A. [Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility] program,” per the outlet.

The memo also stated that the formatting change “aligns with the President’s One Voice for America’s Foreign Relations directive, underscoring the Department’s responsibility to present a unified, professional voice in all communications,” according to Reuters.

Rubio’s decision reverses a 2023 change made by then–Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken under former President Joe Biden. Blinken had switched department documents to Calibri in an effort to improve accessibility for readers with disabilities, The New York Times reported. Calibri is a sans-serif font, a style found in some research to be easier to read; a 2022 National Institutes of Health study noted that such fonts can aid readability for certain users.

In his Dec. 9 memo, Rubio argued that the earlier shift to Calibri “achieved nothing except the degradation of the department’s official correspondence.” He pointed out that serif fonts like Times New Roman are used by the White House, the Supreme Court and other government entities, and are “generally perceived to connote tradition, formality and ceremony,” according to the NYT.

Rubio also adjusted the required font size, reducing it from Blinken’s 15-point standard back to 14-point.

Times New Roman had served as the State Department’s official typeface for nearly two decades before the Calibri experiment. The department previously moved from Courier New to Times New Roman in 2004.

Times New Roman was created in 1932 for the Times of London by designer Victor Lardent with guidance from typographic adviser Stanley Morison, according to Adobe. Calibri, meanwhile, was designed by type designer Lucas de Groot in 2004, The New Yorker reported.