Vincent Connare designed the Trebuchet MS typeface for Microsoft in 1996. It is named after a medieval siege engine called a trebuchet. Connare was inspired by a puzzle question about launching a person across a mile using a trebuchet, and thought it would make a good font name. Trebuchet was designed for use on screens, with large x-heights and clean lines to promote legibility at small sizes. Connare achieved the goal of creating a font that works well at both small and large sizes despite low screen resolutions. Trebuchet is well-suited for extended texts, user interfaces, and spreadsheets due to its narrow letterforms.

1. VINCENT CONNARE
Trebuchet MS is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Vincent Connare for the
Microsoft Corporation in 1996. It is named after the trebuchet, a medieval siege engine.
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The name was inspired by a puzzle question that
Connare heard at Microsoft headquarters: “Can you
make a trebuchet that could launch a person from
main campus to the new consumer campus about a
mile away? Mathematically, is it possible and how?”
Connare “thought that would be a great name for
a font that launches words across the Internet”.
The Trebuchet typeface family, like Verdana
and Georgia, was created for use on the screen.
Designed and engineered in 1996 by Microsoft’s
Vincent Connare, it has a strong and unmistakable
appearance. Its letterforms, loosely based on sans
serif typeface designs of the 1920s and 1930s,
carry a large x-height and clean lines designed to
promote legibility, even at small sizes.
Perhaps Connare’s greatest achievement with
the Trebuchet family is to have created a font
that works at heading and display sizes as well
as small sizes and low resolutions; no mean
task given the low resolution of the computer
screen, which tends to dilute the characteristics
of letterforms, rendering them dull and boring.
After all, a lower case, which at 8pt on the
screen can be at most four or ve pixels high,
can only be drawn in a limited number of ways.
One of Connare’s intentions when designing
Trebuchet was Trebuchet is well-suited to use
for extended texts, User Interface scenarios
and spreadsheet design, given the font’s
narrow letterforms. Trebuchet works
brilliantly on the screen and has quickly
become a classic choice
for Web page design.