December 16, 2025
Serifs and side‑eye
A brief history of Times New Roman
From newspaper icon to ‘please stop’—the font roast you can’t ignore
TLDR: An article crowns Times New Roman a solid old workhorse, then urges readers to stop using it. Comments split between calling out the harsh tone, sharing nicer alternatives like Equity and STIX Two, and designers roasting TNR as the “broken” default thanks to InDesign’s pink warning
Times New Roman started as the Times of London’s proud print workhorse, designed in 1929. The article calls it “a bit narrow,” the italic “mediocre,” yet overall a solid workhorse—then drops a mic with a bold “please stop.” Cue comment chaos. One reader sputtered, “This article has a weird progression… ‘please stop’,” while another deadpanned, “Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?” The mood: half history lesson, half intervention. The author frames TNR as the font of apathy—“the void”—and the crowd can’t decide whether to clap or boo.
Fans rushed in with replacements. “The irony is that Butterick’s ‘Equity’ is beautiful,” swooned one, while another plugged STIX Two as “just a little bit nicer, especially the italic.” Designers shared trauma: years of InDesign swapping missing fonts to TNR with a big pink warning turned it into a “broken” sign. Memes ensued—Times New Void, anyone? Some defended its “default” reliability; others cheered the call to ditch it, linking alternatives like it was a font breakup guide. Verdict from the thread: TNR isn’t bad, it’s just tired—and people are ready to gossip about prettier serifs. Also, lawyers got dragged for clinging to it out of habit
Key Points
- •Times New Roman was created in 1929 for The Times of London, led by typographer Stanley Morison with letterforms drawn by Victor Lardent.
- •Its early and continuous availability across evolving typesetting devices, including personal computers, drove widespread adoption.
- •The font is narrower than most text fonts, especially in bold, and its italic is described as mediocre, reflecting newspaper design needs.
- •The article suggests Times New Roman’s longevity may be due more to ubiquity than quality, contrasting it with Helvetica’s celebrated status.
- •The author states courts do not require 12-point Times New Roman and notes one notable court forbids it, urging readers to choose alternative fonts when possible.