Arial versus Helvetica
swiss-miss.com
swiss-miss.com
Any feedback is appreciated.
Compare the popular typefaces from different platforms (Win/Mac/Lin) would also be very interesting
And for those without Mathematica: http://cronus.ws/~mta/fonts/FontCompareSource.pdf
(The R does still have a little serif though, which always bothers me.)
About the film: Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which celebrated its 50th birthday in 2007) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. The film is an exploration of urban spaces in major cities and the type that inhabits them, and a fluid discussion with renowned designers about their work, the creative process, and the choices and aesthetics behind their use of type.
Can't remember where I heard about it (possibly MetaFilter, or here?).
The reaction of many designers seems to smell of elitism and subjectivism more than anything to me, but I'll be happily proven wrong.
Are designers commonly aware of why Arial exists. I presume many designers must understand the very strong business & licensing reasons for Microsoft to have developed this typeface.
Do many designers also understand the distinctly different approach to pixel alignment in display faces, which some people prefer while others prefer Apple's approach (I subjectively prefer Microsoft's approach).
It's easy to pile onto the I hate Microsoft and everything they touch bandwagon, but how much unbiased and objective research has been applied to the question of qualitative value to the target audience? Is an old typeface only good if it's designed by the Swiss?
Something is stinky here. There are so many subjective factors at play while the language surrounding debate rarely recognizes those factors.
[Update: As noted by DrJokepu below, Microsoft didn't develop the font originally. I think the underlying licensing and business considerations remain a similar discussion.]
Helvetica was built to live in a gridded world: the horizons and verticals of Swiss modernity (look again at R and see how space-consuming it is).
Arial was built to look like Grotesque 215, which is what swiss designers were using before Helvetica. Arial is supposed to be more human (read: humanist), and is for on-screen and on-paper --- not signage.
Designers prefer Helvetica because it is built to be used by designers; any combination of letters will pack neatly in space, both because of the letterforms themselves and the superior kerning.
Arial is meant to be used for less important, less permanent documents. It is more casual, and setting a whole page of text in it does not seem cold or callous.
There can be no such thing. Both fonts accomplish a purpose. Many like one because they feel it is easier to design with. Any reputable designer will instantly recognize both. They are two of the most used fonts in the world. There is no way to perform a blind test.
The closest thing to reputable researchers in design are designers. They spend their lives experimenting with fonts, and most prefer to use the one to the other. Some of them are following popular opinion mindlessly. Many aren't. Until some metric can be made for good design (fat chance. Also, note that readability is not the only important piece of this puzzle) no journal-worthy piece of science is going to come forward.
No one is asking about "reputable designers". The tiny minority of people who can recognize hundreds of fonts at a glance are not interesting when it comes to this question.
There are certainly some objective metrics you can consider. Some that very quickly come to my mind:
1) Effect on reading speed 2) Effect on reading "endurance" (a little harder to define, but reasonable) 3) Effect on recall of text (prose) 4) Effect on recall in advertisements 5) Distance at which text of a given size becomes readable
There's also softer stuff along the lines of "does it make you feel warm and fuzzy", and you can still design experiments for that type of thing too.
So, I'm sorry, but I just don't believe you went you say you can't measure any of this.
I am advocating seeing font as a tool designers use, not an end-user product. When I choose to develop a program using lisp instead of python (or vice-versa), I pick based on preference, knowing that I can produce a competant program with either --- though those programs will certainly differ somewhat --- not because of end-user useability studies of programs created with each.
I believe that equally readable, memorable, aesthetically pleasing design can be produced with either font; they are, after all, very similar. Designers find one more pleasant to use.
I'm a designer and I'm not particularly (at least not inordinately) impassioned about things like this, but I do find it important to recognize the difference between _design_ and art. It's often less about subjective preferences and more about purposeful/thoughtful solutions—in this case, what constitutes acceptable typography.
For example the politics and business constraints surrounding the development, licensing, and use of Helvetica in the 90's are way more complex than simply saying, "Microsoft didn't want to pay for Helvetica", which is how many designers put it.
These complaints about licensing also, by the way, give away many of their visceral emotion-based reactions to Arial, rather than objective design purity. Clearly every party is affected in some way by the commerce of design, which often seems to inform designer's reactions too, especially when the licensing question is over-simplified.
People who don't know the difference, and can't articulate it, will /still/ know something is wrong, even though they can't put their finger on it.
Helvetica is the winner. Geometry is much tighter, plus the kerning and hinting is far better, and you have the possibility of using the many faces in the family from ultra condensed, to wide, from light to black.
The biggest strength of Helvetica is its biggest weakness as well; it works with everything. Almost anything in any context can be written with Helvetica. In most cases though, it's not a particularly intersting choice, I could say, it's a bit boring to see Helvetica everywhere. Of course there are places where Helvetica is a very good fit; the New York Subway is one example of that in my opinion.
Clearly this is uninspired, much like a KDE theme trying to recreate Mac OS X. There's no actual law that says such a knock-off must be inferior to the original but a) it's off to a bad start, and b) even if it ties with the original it's got the taint of being a rip-off motivated by greed.
The full history of Arial, from a link someone else posted: http://www.ms-studio.com/articles.html
Note that Red Hat has in turn commisioned a font that is "metric compatible" with Arial: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_fonts
"What is really strange about Arial is that it appears that Monotype was uncomfortable about doing a direct copy of Helvetica. They could very easily have done that and gotten away with it. Many type manufacturers in the past have done knock-offs of Helvetica that were indistinguishable or nearly so. [...] It’s quite possible that most of the “Helvetica” seen in the ’70s was actually not Helvetica.
Now, Monotype was a respected type foundry with a glorious past and perhaps the idea of being associated with these “pirates” was unacceptable. So, instead, they found a loophole and devised an “original” design that just happens to share exactly the same proportions and weight as another typeface.
This, to my mind, is almost worse than an outright copy. A copy, it could be said, pays homage (if not license fees) to the original by its very existence. Arial, on the other hand, pretends to be different. It says, in effect “I’m not Helvetica. I don’t even look like Helvetica!”, but gladly steps into the same shoes. In fact, it has no other role."