---
title: "Times New Roman (1932) — Stanley Morison and Victor Lardent"
description: "Times New Roman was designed by Stanley Morison and Victor Lardent in 1932. What it signals, where you have seen it, and how to tell it from Times."
url: https://atoneplace.net/font/times-new-roman/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Times New Roman

**Times New Roman: Stanley Morison and Victor Lardent, 1932**

Serif · A document that had no design decision made about it. Academic submissions, legal filings, defaults.

Commissioned by The Times after Morison publicly complained the paper was badly printed, and drawn to be narrow enough to save column space while staying legible on newsprint. Its ubiquity as a default rather than a choice means it now reads as the absence of a decision, which is unfair to a very well made typeface. Word replaced it with Calibri as the default in 2007.

## How to tell it apart

| Mistaken for | Which letters to check |
| --- | --- |
| Times | Times is Linotype's version and Times New Roman is Monotype's, from the same 1932 design. They differ in a handful of details — the ampersand and the figure shapes are the usual tells — and are otherwise interchangeable. |

## The facts

- **Designed by:** Stanley Morison and Victor Lardent
- **Released:** 1932
- **Classification:** Serif
- **What it signals now:** A document that had no design decision made about it. Academic submissions, legal filings, defaults.

## Where you have seen it

- The Times of London until 1972
- Word documents until 2007
- Nearly every academic style guide

## Other typefaces from the 1930s

| Typeface | Year | Designer | What it signals |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Rockwell | 1934 | Monotype Design Studio | Solid, industrial, a bit retro-American. |

> This page describes the typeface rather than showing it. Displaying a specimen requires a licensed font file and almost none of these may be redistributed, so the descriptions name the letters to look at instead.

## Common questions

### Who designed Times New Roman?

Stanley Morison and Victor Lardent, in 1932.

### What is Times New Roman used for?

A document that had no design decision made about it. Academic submissions, legal filings, defaults. You will have seen it on The Times of London until 1972, Word documents until 2007, Nearly every academic style guide.

### What is the difference between Times New Roman and Times?

Times is Linotype's version and Times New Roman is Monotype's, from the same 1932 design. They differ in a handful of details — the ampersand and the figure shapes are the usual tells — and are otherwise interchangeable.

## Related pages

- [Typefaces from the 1930s](https://atoneplace.net/font/decade/1930s/)
- [Garamond](https://atoneplace.net/font/garamond/)
- [Caslon](https://atoneplace.net/font/caslon/)
- [Baskerville](https://atoneplace.net/font/baskerville/)
- [Didot](https://atoneplace.net/font/didot/)
- [Bodoni](https://atoneplace.net/font/bodoni/)
- [Trajan](https://atoneplace.net/font/trajan/)
- [Georgia](https://atoneplace.net/font/georgia/)

## Sources

- Official vendor product documentation — At One Place (/about/)