The Scourge of Arial
Can you tell which is which?
I was reading this article by Mark Simonson where he writes a brief history of Helvetica and its Frankenstein-like relative, Arial. It’s, in my opinion, a very interesting read, covering areas like font studios, companies’ different strategies dealing with font licenses, and how a simple desire not to license the already well established Helvetica font led to Arial. If you’ve ever used a Microsoft product, it’s a guarantee you’ve seen text in that font. While Apple licensed Helvetica (Apple’s core pro customer base needs it), Microsoft decided to go with the cheaper knock-off. Arial has always looked a little odd to me and I could tell the difference between the two. I just never figured out why until I read this article.
Monotype, the creator of Arial, took the high road, and instead of copying Haas Foundry’s Helvetica like many others were doing, they took a similar font that they owned and tweaked the proportions and weight to bring it in line with their competitor’s font. What you have, then, with Arial is a font that has the same dimensions and weight to Helvetica, but is just different enough to not be an absolute rip-off to those knowledgeable enough to tell the difference.
Arial appears to be a loose adaptation of Monotype’s venerable Grotesque series, redrawn to match the proportions and weight of Helvetica. At a glance, it looks like Helvetica, but up close it’s different in dozens of seemingly arbitrary ways. Because it matched Helvetica’s proportions, it was possible to automatically substitute Arial when Helvetica was specified in a document printed on a PostScript clone output device. To the untrained eye, the difference was hard to spot. (See “How to Spot Arial”) After all, most people would have trouble telling the difference between a serif and a sans serif typeface. But to an experienced designer, it was like asking for Jimmy Stewart and getting Rich Little.
Reading The Information Design Handbook has gotten me thinking quite a bit lately about fonts and how to use them. This article, though, just spurred that interest on even further. The two have me constantly evaluating the one or two fonts per slide deck that I use and putting a lot more thought into my font choices. Issues such as whether it’s a decorative font (e.g. Arial Narrow) or not, its x-height, its weight, and the size of counterforms are all things I think about now when I consider which font to use since each of those factor into the legibility of the text.
Those font characteristics are all things to take into consideration when you consider your audience. How far away are the Bob Uecker seats? How old is your audience? What’s the lighting likely to be?
I won’t get into the nitty gritty about all these characteristics. There’s just not enough space and I’ll leave it to the pros. However, I do think that Jenn & Ken Visocky O’Grady’s The Information Design Handbook
By the way, the one on top is Helvetica. 
Comments
Comment from Andres Vivas
Time January 24, 2009 at 11:45 pm
I've never really paid attention to fonts. I try to get a quick rule so I “know” what font t use in what occasion (Verdana for screen, Georgia for printed documents). So, in conclusion, what font should I use for my presentations? Do you recommend Arial for slides?
Comment from WVMikeP
Time January 25, 2009 at 11:57 am
There's no one answer.
Personally, I avoid Arial. Since it's the default for PowerPoint, it shows you put no effort into the slides. Also, fonts have personalities. For example, Arial's is “stable, conformist” (credit: Nancy Duarte – http://www.slideology.com). Seth Godin has an interesting take on the issue as well: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/07...
Other things to consider are how you are using the text. Is it a title? Is it for copy? Title text gives you more freedom to use a decorative font while copy requires a focus on readability. Once you determine the personality you want reflected, consider:
- x-height.: Typically, the higher the x-height, the more legible it is. Of course, there is a point where it can be too much.
- form and counterform: Thin forms combined with large counters make for text that's hard to identify. The same could be said for thick forms and small counters. A good balance lends itself to legibility.
- width and height: Text that has balance in its width and height are more legible. Text that is imbalanced in favor of either width or height are less so.
- stroke width and height: Again, balance helps legibility.
- the age of the audience members. http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/typography-and-... is a great source of information.
I would argue that you'll be hard pressed to attain visual impact with Arial or Helvetica and Arial is, in my opinion, a pretty crude Helvetica impostor. Another thing to consider as well is that the Web rules don't necessarily apply to slides since the audience isn't sitting at the screen reading large amounts of text (if they are, then shame on you).