Microsoft's New Font

Three years ago, I made a post titled "Microsoft New Fonts". The company was offering its consumers an opportunity to vote on a new default typeface, replacing Calibri. They put forth five options to choose between. Last I did this, I offered a graphic demonstrating each, with a description beneath. Since its been so long, I will do so again.

Bierstadt: A precise serif font suitable for grid-based typography, but meant to feel a bit more approachable and less institutional, with a "human touch". It is also the only serif font on the list

Grandview: Inspired by German road signage meant to be readable at a distance, this font is supposed to be "mechanical but elegant"

Seaford: The look for this one was inspired by armchairs, and is meant to have a gently organic and asymmetrical appearance.

Skeena: This one is described as being "quirky" with the most varied contrasts between thickness in its letters, and exceptionally high strokes

Tenorite: With exceptionally large dots, accents and punctuations, this fonts' creators said they were "craving something round, wide and crisp" and that they didn't "shy away from going large and circular".

At the time I think I felt obligated to support Grandview, because my wife is legally blind and I work with people who have disabilities. It's just the most accessible.

I never followed up on the winner. In fact, I forgot about the competition until I was using Microsoft Word recently and noticed a different default font. I don't know when the change ocurred.

The winner was Aptos. You may be offended because it wasn't listed as a competitor, and think that Microsoft must have betrayed the democratic process. But Aptos is just a rebranding of Bierstadt. Maybe the name seemed too niche, or not accomodating to all ages, as a German phrase referencing beer.

I don't think Microsoft has the culural influence anymore to decide what's considered the global standard though. Nowadays, I think most people use Google Docs as their default word processor, and they use Arial. 

I don't have much to say on this. According to my old post, Calibri was invented as a work-around for Arial, as Microsoft didn't have the rights to it. If that was the initially desired font, it makes sense that Google (actually Alphabet) would want to cling to it while Microsoft may want to distinguish themselves, now being the underdogs.

Aptos/Bierstadt may not have been my top pick, but in my initial post I did give them credit for being a serif font in a non-serif world. My all-time favourite typeface is Garamond, which shares this quality.

Anyway, congratulations Aptos. I don't think you'll be as influential as any of your predecessors, unfortunately.

Now for a garden update:

We have seven sunflower blossoms now! Our last record was eight, back in 2023. So we just need one more to tie the score, two more to beat it. As you can see, we have ample more flowers and it's still early in the year. We also have another plot with nine Kongs. Barring anything unforseen, it looks like we're on the way to a new personal best.

Unfortunately, most of them are facing the patio. Sunflowers look toward the setting sun, so this was mostly an oversight on our behalf. It looks like we have two strains growing and one is quicker to blossom than the other, so I think the ones still growing will be tall enough to peak over the edge.

We have a red tomato! Lots of green ones still on the vine, and a few zuchinis are coming in as well. Looks like pretty much everything we planted is producing this year.