Microsoft has announced Aptos, a new typeface for its Office products. Aptos is a typeface inspired by mid-20th century Swiss typography, inheriting the Calibri typeface that was the default font for Outlook for 16 years. Microsoft has been testing new typefaces since 2021 and named one of them, Bierstadt, Aptos after a town in Santa Cruz, California.
Aptos was created by Steve Matteson, who also created Segoe, the default typeface for Windows. Stroke ends are clearly clipped, but usually have some softness applied to avoid a hard feel.
Matteson says he wanted to inject some humanity into the font. Added some swing to the R and g to avoid the mechanical feel of being squeezed into the grid. Q looks more like a circle than an oval, and u stretches wide. Unlike the Calibri, the terminals are also sharpened. It feels like a human touch, but it seems to emphasize that it's still a business.
It provides four font weights and styles that can be used in various environments, including Aptos Display, Aptos Condensed, Aptos Mono, Aptos Serif, and Aptos Variable.
Aptos will be rolling out to Microsoft 365 over the next few months. Like Calibri, Aptos is pinned to the top of the font selector, but it's not required. The typefaces we were testing with: Grandview, Seaford, Skeena, and Tenorite are also available.
This is a typeface for a platform that has been around for a while. The sales of Microsoft Office account for 24% of the total. Due to the nature of the product for business, the amount of text will be enormous, but the influence of fonts on the overall impression of the product cannot be overstated.
I haven't met a Windows product yet, but I want to test the font as soon as possible. Microsoft Design is full of good news these days.
Every Tuesday morning, a designer with 16 years of experience curated Collect design trends.
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