Times New Roman (TNR) is the most widely used typeface on earth, due in no small part to Microsoft Windows. Ever since Windows 3.1 was introduced in 1992, the default typeface in nearly all of its applications has been Times New Roman. Microsoft has released beta versions of Office 2007 in which the default typeface is not TNR. Instead, Word will default to Windows’ own font, Calibri, designed expressly for the computer screen.

Times New Roman, and indeed most of today’s type, has its roots deep in the Renaissance. Before the introduction of moveable type in the 15th century, texts were, of course, handwritten. Gutenberg’s first printings emulated the gothic-style handwriting known today as “blackletter.”

As the Renaissance took hold, art, music, literature, and even type moved away from medieval forms to more humanist and Classical ones. Nicolas Jensen and others are generally credited with moving type from a calligraphic tradition to a truly typographic form. Classical authors handwrote in one style (mostly lowercase), and cut into stone in another style (uppercase only).

Centuries later, Jensen combined these styles to create one of the first roman typefaces, setting the stage for the typefaces we use today. In keeping with the growing humanism and secularism, the new roman faces were far more legible than blackletter. Many of today’s popular Old Style typefaces were first cut during this time: Garamond, Bembo, Palatino, Minion (in which Natural Selections is set), and many more are based closely on Renaissance texts.

The 17th and 18th centuries saw the creation of elegant, refined faces inspired by math and made possible by the new engraving and printing technologies. The letterforms moved further away from broad-nibbed calligraphy and more towards forms based on the quill and steel pen. All this allowed for a more fluid line and a higher contrast between thick and thin elements. To our eyes, the Transitional faces are nearly invisible—proportional, neutral. It’s hard to say whether this is intrinsic to this type of face or whether the ubiquity of Transitionals (especially Times New Roman) makes them appear invisible. Perhaps it’s both, but the Transitional faces offer a more balanced reading experience in contrast to the relatively loose Old Styles and the rigid and mannered Modern faces.

Taking the geometric model of type design to an extreme, typographers in the late 18th and early 19th centuries created faces wholly divorced from the handwritten tradition. The thin horizontal serifs are dissociated from the main strokes of the letters. The thick/thin contrast of the Moderns is very high, making it less legible, especially at smaller sizes, than Old Style or Transitional faces. The Modern era ended in the beginning of the 20th century with the Bauhaus and the development of sans serif typefaces, primarily for display and headline purposes.

In 1931, The Times of London commissioned the Monotype Corporation to design a new text typeface: Times New Roman. The Times tapped outspoken typographer Stanley Morison for the job after he criticized the then current typography of the paper. Morison and his associate Victor Lardent based their new face on the work of the Renaissance type designer Robert Granjon and printer Christophe Plantin, making adjustments for legibility and the paper’s space and printing constraints. Following its premiere as The Times’s new face, TNR enjoyed popularity as a versatile book and magazine text font. But it was when desktop publishing took off with WordPerfect and eventually Microsoft Word that Times New Roman became the omnipresent office workhorse we all use.

We are now in the age of digital type where the rules are quite different. In print, one has control over the size of the paper, ink, margins, line and letter spacing, etc. But on screen, and especially on the Web, designers have little to no control over the users’ screen size, resolution, window size, browser, monitor brightness, or even availability of fonts on users’ systems.

Windows Vista, Microsoft’s next operating system, will ship with a family of new typefaces designed for the screen. Microsoft has already gained much success with its for-the-screen fonts Georgia and Verdana, among the most used on the Web. But the new ClearType Font Collection includes six typefaces and they are all meant to improve not just the screen reading experience but LCD screen reading specifically. Microsoft Word’s default typeface seems likely to be Calibri, a sans-serif Microsoft says is also “useful” for print applications as well as on-screen.

What will become of Times New Roman? Traditional print faces Arial and TNR have already given way to Verdana and Georgia on the Web. If Windows Vista is a success, as systems convert to the new fonts, and more and more Web sites use screen fonts, Times New Roman may be quietly and gradually retired. And its most notable trait, being utterly nondescript, may seal its fate—few will miss it. You’ve worked hard enough, rest in peace.

The examples shown here are not originals but digital reproductions created in the computer age based closely on historical texts.