On March 11th, news broke that an increasing number of office workers feel betrayed by Microsoft due to a seemingly innocuous change – the switch from the default font Calibri to Aptos in many Office 365 updates.
Netizens took to social media to express their discontent. One user lamented, "Out of nowhere, the default font on my work computer changed from Calibri to this weird thing, feels like some kind of nauseating joke."
This unexpected font alteration even reached Outlook, sparking a professional identity crisis for some users.
It's surprising that a mere change in default font could generate such intense discussions on social media. While many may not be aware of Microsoft's font switch or the specifics of the new font named Aptos, people's sensitivity to font changes appears to be higher than anticipated by the media.
The top font is Calibri Light, and the bottom one is Aptos, images courtesy of jdsalaro.com.
Thomas Phinney, the chair of the typeface organization ATypl, believes that changing the default font is a highly invasive move:
It's like walking into your own room and suddenly finding someone has changed the color of your walls. Even if it doesn't have a big technical impact, it changes how you feel in that room and how you feel about writing documents.
Actually, Microsoft has been talking about changing the default font since April 2021, even listing five candidate fonts for the public to consider, but it garnered limited attention.
By July 2023, Microsoft began gradually replacing Calibri with Aptos as the new default font; by January and February of this year, a large number of users found their default font had changed after an update.
Some even started to wonder, "Is there a bug in my software?"
Regarding the reason for changing the font, Microsoft's Vice President of Design and Research, Jon Friedman, explained: We want to bring something fresh that's truly designed for the modern computing era from the ground up.
"If you think of fonts as the clothing for our thoughts, then stepping into a new era, our thoughts should also get a new wardrobe," Friedman said.
