Phase out of Calibri....

Microsoft is phasing out Calibri Font, I am not liking it one bit.

https://www.wired.com/story/calibri-default-font-microsoft-moving-on/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-intl-en 

I remember that for a long time I was a fan of Arial font. It had heft. Much like a Eiffel Tower, Arial font towered over fonts like Times New Roman and Book Antiqua of the same font size. It had heft and a kind of grandfatherly friendliness.

Arial had another advantage that it filled pages. So a normal five pager went to seven pages giving me that illusion of achievement. I liked it.

Microsoft default was Times New Roman. My first task after opening a document was to change from Times New Roman to Arial. I did not like Times New Roman. I did not feel that the font gelled with my liberal philosophy. With its sharp edges and a formal, authoritarian look and feel, it felt like something out of Hitler's Germany.

I had brief flings with other fonts like Lucida, Comic Sans and Tahoma, but I always returned to Arial.

Then came Calibri.

My first exposure to Calibri was while reviewing a proposal when I was working with Oracle. I immediately liked the font.

It was cute and small and rounded and pretty and had rounded edges and a flow that Arial lacked. In front of Calibri, Arial looked tired and boring. Calibri had zest and chutzpah and joie de vivre. Working on Calibri meant that my mind did not have to feel the cognitive dissonance of a great idea covered in a bad font (oh mi gosh, I called you a bad font, sorry Arial). I could focus on making my article 'really' good rather than making it 'look' good. I could add my personality even to formal documents.

Calibri nurtured my soul and lifted my spirits and boosted my creativity. With Calibri, I felt like a new man.

Calibri has been my default font for the last ten years. I have written reams of documents, blog posts, articles, proposals and reports in that font. I have gotten used to Calibri.

That is why the news that Microsoft is switching its default font came as a jolt. It was like a part of me was being phased out.

I have seen the replacement options, they look good.

But they are not Calibri.