Just find an image, add a punchy phrase in Impact and you’re there. The look helps us recognize the whole package as a meme, says Syracuse’s Rotolo.

The lead for Impact built off a key decision in 1996, when Impact became one of the “core fonts for the web” — a Microsoft-curated attempt at a standard font pack that would work across the ...

His own company has created several fonts that have the same metrics as Impact. But, for now, it’s not going anywhere. “For the most part the template will stick,” says Rotolo.