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Goodbye, Calibri.
Microsoft He named the next default font for his productivity apps, such as Word and Outlook, after testing five candidates he introduced in 2021. He has since called it Bierstadt. Now it gets a new name: Aptos.
This step amounts to a subtle improvement of some of the world’s most popular software. Microsoft doesn’t take such steps lightly, because its Office products generate nearly 24% of its revenue. It’s growing faster than other parts of the business, such as video game content and search advertising, as Microsoft seeks to entrap more end users and get existing customers to spend more.
If the core apps look fresh, Microsoft can make a better case when it comes time to renew subscriptions to Microsoft 365, formerly Office 365. The company is now ready to do just that, after accept input from end users about the five new lines.
“Today we begin the final phase of this major change as Aptos will begin to appear as the new default font across Word, Outlook, PowerPoint and Excel for hundreds of millions of users,” wrote Si Daniels, Principal Program Manager for Office Design at Microsoft. In a blog post published Thursday. “Over the course of the next few months, it will be rolled out as the default option for all of our customers.”
Aptos will still be available in the font menu under the old Bierstadt name for people who are used to it. Users can also choose to set any other font as default. This includes older standards, like Times New Roman, Arial, or even Calibri, which have been the default since 2007, before the launch of Office 365 in 2011. Many people view Microsoft as a friendlier place since Satya Nadella replaced Steve Ballmer as president its implementation in 2014, but that updated identity isn’t necessarily reflected when someone starts typing an email in Outlook with a font that precedes Nadella.
In 2019, Microsoft asked font designer Steve Matteson to develop a whimsical sans-serif-style font that included classic Helvetica. Matteson said in an interview with CNBC this week that the company hasn’t let that consider him as a possible Calibri successor.
At the time, Matteson was still working for the font company Monotype, and he and his colleagues gave Microsoft four or five proposals for consideration, not including the names of contributors. He said this was important because the designers did not want his relationship with Microsoft to influence the software maker’s decision.
Matteson’s work with Microsoft dates back to the 1990s. He helped use Microsoft’s TrueType fonts for Windows 3.1, and created the Segoe font that Microsoft uses for its current logo and marketing materials. He also contributed to the aptly named font curls. He said that wasn’t his proudest moment.
From the group that Matteson and his colleagues sent to Microsoft, they chose his, which at that point was simply called Grotesque No. 2. Microsoft then gave him a codename, Koyuk. Then he came up with the name Bierstadt, and took the name of a mountain in Colorado, where he lives. In German, “Birstadt” means “beer city”.
Some people didn’t take the name seriously, Matteson said, and Microsoft decided to come up with a new name for the font. He came to Aptos, an unincorporated town in Santa Cruz County, California.
“Aptos has a unique coastal climate, with a beach, all the way up to red forests,” he said. “What I loved about California is the variety, and it kind of told me that there are all these different moods and experiences you can have. Likewise, with Aptos, you have all these different voices that you can speak without distorting the message.”
Matteson created a serif version of the font, along with a monospace version that could work for writing code. He worked on monetary symbols and supported the Greek and Cyrillic languages. And he has worked with Microsoft to make sure that it will work well in different scenarios. He said that if one were to convert cells in an Excel spreadsheet from Calibri to Aptos, the numbers in the cell were less likely to flow into the cell next to it.
Didn’t see every reply on line. But he’s noticed people saying that in Bierstadt, a lowercase L and a capital letter can’t be mistaken for one another.
However, Matteson had nothing but respect for Calibri and its author, Lucas de Groot.
“I can understand Microsoft wanting to, you know, make a change, but I don’t think there was anything wrong with Calibri,” he said.
He watches: Satya Nadella talks about his nine years at the helm of Microsoft
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