Why I Stopped Using Times New Roman — And Why You Should, Too

A few years ago, a global shipping logistics company on the West Coast approached me about refreshing their newhire manual. They felt that the manual “no longer communicated the right image of their company.”

Could I help?

HOW I MADE THEIR NEWHIRE MANUAL LOOK MORE CONTEMPORARY — WITH 1 SIMPLE CHANGE

I’ve written lots of newhire manuals for companies all over the globe — including EDS, IBM, Sprint, Applebee’s, and more. I’ve been a technical writer for 21 years.

But I was surprised by this newhire manual: the content actually looked very good. (And I see a LOT of bad manuals.)

It was clean and well-organized. It was easy to read, with the right amount of subheaders, whitespace, and visuals.

I honestly wasn’t sure I could improve it. So I slept on it that night.

The next morning I woke up and changed one major thing:

I changed the body content font — from Times New Roman to Calibri.

A BETTER FIRST IMPRESSION

The client loved it. Suddenly, the manual looked “knowledgeable, relevant, cutting-edge, and contemporary” — giving newhires and future candidates a better first impression of the company.

I knew we were onto something.