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Beyond Calibri: Finding the next default font for Microsoft

Microsoft commissioned five new custom fonts and asks its user to decide which will be the new default.

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H James Lucas

Standard Member

Does Skeena have a lock on this, or does Seaford have a chance?

Riccardo Sartori

Standard Member

I am not sure the world is ready for a mainstream contrasted sans.

Riccardo Sartori

Standard Member
On 7/21/2023 at 10:03 PM, H James Lucas said:

Not really surprising, alas.

For those interested in how they all look in a text setting, John Gruber has compiled a set of PDFs.

H James Lucas

Standard Member

If it had been a traditional vote, I would have expected Bierstadt, but Microsoft had previously shown wisdom with both Calibri and Segoe. Skeena still strikes me as such an obvious balance between generic and contemporary (especially with Grandview and Seaford there to make it more generic-looking by comparison) that I never developed the appropriate pessimism.

FWIW, here are my own specimen pages that probe OpenType features (especially small caps) and extended Latin—get ready for sadness!

type_text-tester-Bierstadt.pdf type_text-tester-Grandview.pdf type_text-tester-Seaford.pdf type_text-tester-Skeena.pdf type_text-tester-Tenorite.pdf

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