Sunday, June 18, 2006

Typefaces in Baghdad

For some reason, perhaps because they published the image of it, the Post didn't put up a URL to a fascinating story--a memo from the embassy in Baghdad recording the problems and concerns faced by Iraqi employees. (The most disturbing bit--most don't even tell their families who they work for.) You can see the image here--washingtonpost.com: Outlook Image.

As a sidenote, I found it interesting that the memo is not in a proportional spaced typeface, like Times Roman. Despite the fact that a proportional spaced font is easier to read and comprehend, and thousands are available for any PC, for some reason the State Department sticks to the past. (It may be because something like Courier used to scan better than more modern typefaces and that was the way they got typed material into a database before they got halfway modern. Or it may just be inertia.)

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