ARIAL

The typeface, Arial is pretty popular. It is basically on every type of computer/device. It is incorporated in both the PC and Mac, which is seen all over the world! Ariel has a large array of different styles. Its large family includes Ariel, Ariel Black, Bold, Extra Bold, Condensed, Italic, Light, Medium, Monospaced, Narrow and Round. This font is featured on design spreads, newspapers, magazines, promotions and logos. With its easy readability Arial has been included in logos such as Eventful collaborative calendar, Myspace.com, Tracklife and more. All these types of variations of Arial have been used and recognized globally.

The original name of this typeface was Sonoran Sans-Serif. This San-Serif font was designed for low-resolution IMB’s bitmap lazar printers. Nicholas and Patricia Saunders originally designed this typeface for Monotype Typography in 1982. It then was brought into Truescript in 1990 and then in 1991 was introduced as a postscript. The name changed when Microsoft incorporated it into Windows. This font was incorporated into Windows 3.1 in 1992 and was the core font of that time. (Wikipedia, 2011)They chose this font over Helvetica because it was said to be cheaper and some people would not be about to tell the difference between the two. This font then became part of the standard Microsoft library. Arial became so popular and pushed this postscript into adobe reader. Arial MT, which was part of the Arial family, was included into Acorbat reader 4 and 5. Arial MT contains about 38000 different characters just within its shape. (Arial & Arial Unicode MS)

The weight of the font links up with the look and feel of Helvetica. They both are easy to read and are pleasing to the eye. Many people say that Arial is a knock off of this famous font. However, Arial is taller and has a greater line-height. In the san–serf font, the I and L look pretty similar and could be difficult to read. Each letter is placed not to close or to far from each letter. The stroke weight is curved and round. This is also similar to Tahoma the simplicity and clarity of the font is appealing for many viewers.

Arial might not be the most liked of fonts but it is seen just about everywhere. However, I feel, that Arial does have elegance with its easy readability. It still as popular as it was in the 1980’s. It is still on every computing device, which makes it extremely recognizable to a large audience. Arial is a trademark for windows. It is found all over, Windows Me, Windows 95 and Windows XP’s. I have grown up with this font and truly feel that it does have elegance to its simplicity. With both Windows and Mac OS, Arial is one of the broadly distributed typefaces in the world.

2001. “The scourge of Arial”. viewed 4 March 2011. http://ebcache.googleusercontent.com

2011. “Arial”. Wikipedia. viewed 5 March 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arial

2007, “ Arial vs Helvetica” http://ilovetypography.com/2007/10/06/arial-versus-helvetica/

2001-2011. “Nicolas, Robin” viewed 6 march 2011. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:zozFyl3LRrcJ:www.fonts.com

“Arial & Arial Unicode MS” viewed 6 March 2011. http://www.prepressure.com/fonts/interesting/arial