Oh, the words you'll Segoe!

An ode to Microsoft typography, inspired by Dr. Seuss and Steve Matteson.

Mark Kashman

Jul 22, 2022

Oh, the words you'll Segoe!

Written by Mark Kashman, illustrated by Sophie Kashman

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’ve great paragraphs to write!
‘Save as’ and save away!

With products in the cloud
You have ideas – anything you want.
You’re on your own, make the company proud.
Steer us in any direction – so long as you use the right font.

Oh, the words you’ll Segoe!
"The best typeface choice for legibility in pretty much any situation."

Since Windows 8, it has been the way.
A new look and feel each going-forward day.
Metro UI – a glorious interface-successor sight.
Surpassed Helvetica to scale to the highest licensed typeface heights.

Familiarity breeds trust – brings comfort and care.
Simply follow the footsteps of Frutiger – no risk, nowhere.
Wherever you blog, tweet, campaign, and type-type your hype;
Wherever you write, you WILL stick to our new, set-in-stone monotype.

Oh! The words you’ll Segoe!

There is documentation to be written.
How-to steps and demo scripts – all with release dates within sight.
And the marvelous messaging you can do with the turn of a phrase.
Views and Clicks - your words will be retweeted and quoted,
Across the world wide web – elevated, floated.

Except when they aren’t. Because sometimes release dates slip.
Put on pause – grounded, halted, the most delayed of delayed ships.
But alas, type “coming soon” and all shall come to pass sans blip.

Will your words ever go live?
Yes! Certainly, absolutely, completely, and of course.
(99.999% and ¾ of the service level agreement in the fine-print discourse.)

Colleague, you’ll move words, phrases, paragraphs!
So…even if your favored font be Helvetica or Lucinda Grande, Courier, Tahoma or Franklin Gothic Demi, your best foot forward is to format-paint Segoe over all your words!

The blank page awaits.
BOOM! Today is your day to lift off the land!
Today is the day to amplify, amplify – strike up the band.
Do what you do…so long as you always, always – stay on brand!