4 ms·

>If that’s impossible, you can still make good typography with system fonts. But choose wisely. And never choose times new roman nor Arial, as those fo

by SCdF 13y ago

>If that’s impossible, you can still make good typography with system fonts. But choose wisely. And never choose times new roman nor Arial, as those fonts are favored only by the apathetic and sloppy. Not by typographers. Not by you. OK, I appreciate the advice, but why is Arial bad? I mean, I can't even tell the difference! Reading deeper: > My aversion to Comic Sans—king of the goofy fonts—probably comes as no surprise. But why Arial? Arial was created as a Helvetica substitute. To many, they’re indistinguishable. But to typographers... Right. So what I get from that is, if you care about making sure your content is fashionable to typographers, don't use Arial. Otherwise (i.e. nearly all the time) Arial is fine.

msutherl 13y ago
Arial actually looks much better onscreen at small sizes, since that's what it was designed for. It bothers me to no end when "designers" use Helvetica or Helvetica Neue on websites with small body copy. Guys: Arial is Helvetica, but optimized for the screen. Use it. As for why not Helvetica or Times New Roman, it's because they're boring. Using either of these typefaces is a non-choice. It's like not using any color in your design. If you do it right, your design can look timeless, transparent, minimal. If you do it wrong, you look lazy. Arial is a great choice for somebody like Google who wants to position their brand as if it's the very substance of the internet. Before the recent re-branding, they looked lazy (because they were). Now they look timeless. But if you want your brand to have a unique character, or you have interesting typographical problems to solve, you should look into other typefaces.
- SCdF 13y ago
  So I want people to concentrating on what I write, not how the letters look. Am I missing the point though? Every time I've looked at custom fonts I haven't been able to find any that look more "readable" for large amounts of body text than what already ships on everyone's devices. They either look basically the same (so why bother) or they look gimmicky, and as I said, I want people to looking at my writing, not at my writing, if you get my drift.
  - nsfmc 13y ago
    this is an argument at least sixty years old, if not older: http://gmunch.home.pipeline.com/typo-L/misc/ward.htm http://gmunch.home.pipeline.com/typo-L/misc/ward.htm it has people on both sides of the aisle and people often switch back and forth (see jan tschichold for the canonical example of this)
    - msutherl 13y ago
      I would also point out that text is used for more than just body copy.
- runmyrun 13y ago
  Arial, believe it or not, wasn't originally designed for the screen. It's not an optimized Helvetica, it's a generic looking franken-Grotesque that was billed as a low-rent Helvetica. And that's pretty much what it is. Some of the other 'Microsoft core fonts' (Arial was originally designed by Monotype in 1982, not Microsoft) were actually designed for low resolution screen display, like Georgia and Verdana. Arial is better hinted than some of the versions of Helvetica out there, especially some of the lousy ones more common to older PCs. It has a high x-height and was designed to be readable at smaller sizes—in print. But so was Helvetica. In fact, one of the virtues of Helvetica is that it's pretty legible as body text. Like any typeface, it can be abused, but it's not a crime to use it for body copy. Just make sure not to track it too tightly. As high resolution displays become more commonplace, concerns about hinted type should lessen. And having to design fat, wide letters for crude raster grids will hopefully become a thing of the past—like old terminal displays. One last thing: Helvetica's a pretty sweet looking typeface; contrary to its reputation, not at all 'neutral', it has midcentury charm and character without looking too dated. Give it its due!
  - msutherl 13y ago
    Wow, I stand corrected. I had recalled reading an article that claimed this, but according to the Wikipedia entry, it's not true. I just did a quick comparison of Helvetica and Arial at 13px and, while they are very nearly identical at that size, enough of the superiority of Helvetica shows through (the q and R look nicer, for instance) that I'm willing to completely reverse my opinion. Helvetica Neue on the other hand still looks awful at 13px on a standard resolution screen due to the tracking being too tight.
    - chipotle_coyote 13y ago
      I really like Helvetica Neue, but I think you're right -- it doesn't work too well when it's small, at least on screen. At a browser's standard 16px it seems to be pretty good. But in five years we'll all have high-DPI displays, right? (For certain values of "high-DPI" and "all.")
Groxx 13y ago
After a bit of skimming through, I think this advice is highly specific to print. In this case, universally avoiding screen-optimized fonts in favor of their print-optimized near-clones seems rational; they serve different goals. Screen fonts lack printable subtleties because they wouldn't display well, and weights and spacing are influenced by e.g. pixel size, which isn't really an issue in print.
nsfmc 13y ago
Whether or not you like arial is totally on you. In many cases, especially onscreen, arial looks perfectly fine. Many of the norms around 'good' and 'inappopriate' type are the same around fashion/clothes. You can wear whatever you want and it's on you whether or not 'you wear it well.' As an aside, when i was in grad school, the style coming out of yale and the werkplaats typografie was this severely default design aesthetic. Times new roman massively overlaid atop a xeroxed image at times abandoning legibility. It was like high-art zine culture blended with dutch sensibility, i.e. http://ffffound.com/image/d6f63117fcf5ea64c59c66b8af85e2389d27adb3?c=3269722 http://ffffound.com/image/d6f63117fcf5ea64c59c66b8af85e2389d... But to the point about what makes arial "good" or "bad" is the same thing that makes Didot a bit tough as a text face (it just wasn't designed to be used that way). And same with arial, it was designed as a screen font that prints ok. I don't think the whole "lesser helveltica" claim is entirely fair to arial, but you have to accept it for what it's for: a generic screen font. If that is the look you are hoping to rock, use it wherever you want. And to the larger point: all prescriptive advice should be treated like training wheels. if you already have the sense to know what you're doing, you can safely avoid the advice. if you don't know how to critique your own work, then it helps to think about what the prescriptive advice is getting you to avoid. If you are at the point where you are making intentional decisions about what your design should look like, then keep on keeping on. But it helps to be aware of the cultural baggage that those choices bring along with them. I critted somebody's poster once and made the offhand comment: "oh, that looks computery" and i was basically trying to say "that has that homemade camcorder feel that home movies have, but if it were a poster that had been made with a computer." and it turned out after some period of time that i was actually reacting, subconsciously, to the fact that it was set with arial. How weird is that? But it was because i was so familiar with that look as something that tasted digital that is seemed weird in print. It wasn't wrong, it was just giving off that vibe. Likewise, butterick is trying to make his own mark, setting his own tone. That's his right, he's alluding to certain traditions and aesthetics. It's fashion, yes, but it's also all the choices and feelings that those fashion choices bring along with them.

by SCdF 13y ago

msutherl 13y ago

Arial actually looks much better onscreen at small sizes, since that's what it was designed for. It bothers me to no end when "designers" use Helvetica or Helvetica Neue on websites with small body copy. Guys: Arial is Helvetica, but optimized for the screen. Use it. As for why not Helvetica or Times New Roman, it's because they're boring. Using either of these typefaces is a non-choice. It's like not using any color in your design. If you do it right, your design can look timeless, transparent, minimal. If you do it wrong, you look lazy. Arial is a great choice for somebody like Google who wants to position their brand as if it's the very substance of the internet. Before the recent re-branding, they looked lazy (because they were). Now they look timeless. But if you want your brand to have a unique character, or you have interesting typographical problems to solve, you should look into other typefaces.

SCdF 13y ago
So I want people to concentrating on what I write, not how the letters look. Am I missing the point though? Every time I've looked at custom fonts I haven't been able to find any that look more "readable" for large amounts of body text than what already ships on everyone's devices. They either look basically the same (so why bother) or they look gimmicky, and as I said, I want people to looking at my writing, not at my writing, if you get my drift.
- nsfmc 13y ago
  this is an argument at least sixty years old, if not older: http://gmunch.home.pipeline.com/typo-L/misc/ward.htm http://gmunch.home.pipeline.com/typo-L/misc/ward.htm it has people on both sides of the aisle and people often switch back and forth (see jan tschichold for the canonical example of this)
  - msutherl 13y ago
    I would also point out that text is used for more than just body copy.
runmyrun 13y ago
Arial, believe it or not, wasn't originally designed for the screen. It's not an optimized Helvetica, it's a generic looking franken-Grotesque that was billed as a low-rent Helvetica. And that's pretty much what it is. Some of the other 'Microsoft core fonts' (Arial was originally designed by Monotype in 1982, not Microsoft) were actually designed for low resolution screen display, like Georgia and Verdana. Arial is better hinted than some of the versions of Helvetica out there, especially some of the lousy ones more common to older PCs. It has a high x-height and was designed to be readable at smaller sizes—in print. But so was Helvetica. In fact, one of the virtues of Helvetica is that it's pretty legible as body text. Like any typeface, it can be abused, but it's not a crime to use it for body copy. Just make sure not to track it too tightly. As high resolution displays become more commonplace, concerns about hinted type should lessen. And having to design fat, wide letters for crude raster grids will hopefully become a thing of the past—like old terminal displays. One last thing: Helvetica's a pretty sweet looking typeface; contrary to its reputation, not at all 'neutral', it has midcentury charm and character without looking too dated. Give it its due!
- msutherl 13y ago
  Wow, I stand corrected. I had recalled reading an article that claimed this, but according to the Wikipedia entry, it's not true. I just did a quick comparison of Helvetica and Arial at 13px and, while they are very nearly identical at that size, enough of the superiority of Helvetica shows through (the q and R look nicer, for instance) that I'm willing to completely reverse my opinion. Helvetica Neue on the other hand still looks awful at 13px on a standard resolution screen due to the tracking being too tight.
  - chipotle_coyote 13y ago
    I really like Helvetica Neue, but I think you're right -- it doesn't work too well when it's small, at least on screen. At a browser's standard 16px it seems to be pretty good. But in five years we'll all have high-DPI displays, right? (For certain values of "high-DPI" and "all.")

Groxx 13y ago

After a bit of skimming through, I think this advice is highly specific to print. In this case, universally avoiding screen-optimized fonts in favor of their print-optimized near-clones seems rational; they serve different goals. Screen fonts lack printable subtleties because they wouldn't display well, and weights and spacing are influenced by e.g. pixel size, which isn't really an issue in print.

nsfmc 13y ago

Whether or not you like arial is totally on you. In many cases, especially onscreen, arial looks perfectly fine. Many of the norms around 'good' and 'inappopriate' type are the same around fashion/clothes. You can wear whatever you want and it's on you whether or not 'you wear it well.' As an aside, when i was in grad school, the style coming out of yale and the werkplaats typografie was this severely default design aesthetic. Times new roman massively overlaid atop a xeroxed image at times abandoning legibility. It was like high-art zine culture blended with dutch sensibility, i.e. http://ffffound.com/image/d6f63117fcf5ea64c59c66b8af85e2389d27adb3?c=3269722 http://ffffound.com/image/d6f63117fcf5ea64c59c66b8af85e2389d... But to the point about what makes arial "good" or "bad" is the same thing that makes Didot a bit tough as a text face (it just wasn't designed to be used that way). And same with arial, it was designed as a screen font that prints ok. I don't think the whole "lesser helveltica" claim is entirely fair to arial, but you have to accept it for what it's for: a generic screen font. If that is the look you are hoping to rock, use it wherever you want. And to the larger point: all prescriptive advice should be treated like training wheels. if you already have the sense to know what you're doing, you can safely avoid the advice. if you don't know how to critique your own work, then it helps to think about what the prescriptive advice is getting you to avoid. If you are at the point where you are making intentional decisions about what your design should look like, then keep on keeping on. But it helps to be aware of the cultural baggage that those choices bring along with them. I critted somebody's poster once and made the offhand comment: "oh, that looks computery" and i was basically trying to say "that has that homemade camcorder feel that home movies have, but if it were a poster that had been made with a computer." and it turned out after some period of time that i was actually reacting, subconsciously, to the fact that it was set with arial. How weird is that? But it was because i was so familiar with that look as something that tasted digital that is seemed weird in print. It wasn't wrong, it was just giving off that vibe. Likewise, butterick is trying to make his own mark, setting his own tone. That's his right, he's alluding to certain traditions and aesthetics. It's fashion, yes, but it's also all the choices and feelings that those fashion choices bring along with them.

>If that’s im­pos­si­ble, you can still make good ty­pog­ra­phy with sys­tem fonts. But choose wise­ly. And nev­er choose times new roman nor Arial, as those fo

>If that’s im­pos­si­ble, you can still make good ty­pog­ra­phy with sys­tem fonts. But choose wise­ly. And nev­er choose times new roman nor Arial, as those fo

>If that’s impossible, you can still make good typography with system fonts. But choose wisely. And never choose times new roman nor Arial, as those fo

>If that’s impossible, you can still make good typography with system fonts. But choose wisely. And never choose times new roman nor Arial, as those fo