A curious US culture-war memo about typefaces becomes a sharp lesson in readability, newspaper craft, and how badly those lessons have been forgotten in Australian journalism.

How confusing it was when, readying to ridicule the latest Trump administration absurdity, I saw, just for a moment, something of a grain of truth in it.

It was visceral.

“If you want it readable, set it in Times New Roman, 10 point on 12 leading, black on white, as the maker intended.”

The speaker was the incomparable Bob James (1932-2004), master typographer and newspaper-design guru, addressing us Harry Brittain Fellows on our Commonwealth Press Union tour of the United Kingdom in 1997. James’s obit in The Times declared his “huge influence on the appearance of British newspapers for three decades” and noted that he “changed the face of Australian newspapers too in a series of tours.”

Too right, and for all the right reasons – entirely unlike the ridiculous Marco Rubio memo that cut the Calibri typeface from official communication so as to “abolish yet another wasteful DEIA [Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility] program”.

The State Department cable reportedly sent to all US diplomatic posts said that typography shapes the professionalism of an official document and Calibri is informal compared with serif typefaces.

“To restore decorum and professionalism to the department’s written work products........

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