Ban Garamond? C’mon, People, It’s Not Exactly Comic Sans
The D.C. Circuit Court would prefer to deliver justice in Times New Roman, thank you very much.
Let’s obsess over fonts for a moment.
Illustration: Jessica Karl for Bloomberg
Journalists have been having a lot of fun with the notice from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit “to encourage the use of typefaces that are easier to read and to discourage use of Garamond.”
“Maybe it was a string of obscure acronyms appearing in a relatively small typeface that hurt the eyes of judges,” wrote a commentator at the National Law Journal. Slate asked “What did Garamond do to deserve a D.C. Court’s wrath?” I have some sympathy for the judges. When a big part of your job involves reviewing deadly dull legal briefs, readability matters. Yet I find myself wondering, in all seriousness, whether the court might be making a mistake.