Microsoft inc. has announced its decision to change the default font for Microsoft Office software in 2022.
While there are over 700 font options, the company is asking people to help it decide which font to use as the default font.
Microsoft has commissioned five new custom fonts for Office, in a move away from the Calibri font, which has been the default font for Microsoft Office for nearly 15 years.
The five new sans-serif fonts feature a variety of styles, including a style inspired by German road and railway signs, as well as traditional, and modern style.
Tenorite, a font style created by Erin McLaughlin and Wei Huang, is the more traditional style out of the five. It closely resembles a more modern version of the default Times New Roman font, with wide characters, accents, and clear punctuation.
Skeena, created by John Hudson and Paul Hanslow, feels inspired by various periods of font design. It has big variations in the thick and thin parts of its letters, along with very distinct curves on letters like S, A, and J.
Bierstadt by Steve Mattison is inspired by mid-20th-century Swiss typography. The stroke endings are very clearly cut off, but there are some subtle softening. The font was named after a rocky mountain in Colorado that reminds Mattison of the Swiss Alps.
Seaford, created by Tobias Frere-Jones, Nina Stössinger, and Fred Shallcrass, invokes the classic old-style serif text typefaces. The designers was inspired by old armchairs to find a practical way to bring a classic, valued font back to life.
Grandview, created by Aaron Bell, draws inspiration from classic German road and railway signs. This font is designed to be highly legible, with some tweaks to make it more comfortable for long-form reading.
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Microsoft is started rolling out these new fonts in Microsoft 365 to enable users to try them out before a new default is chosen.
Microsoft say polls and feedback will be considered as part of how it picks a winner, and the company is going to spend the next few months evaluating these new fonts and seeing which ones are proving popular.
After a decision is made, the new default font will appear in Microsoft Office apps in 2022.