Arial

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Sample


Typeface name	Arial
Category	Transitional sans-serif
Designer(s)	Robin Nicholas Patricia Saunders
Foundry	Monotype

Arial, sometimes marketed as Arial MT, is a typeface and a computer font packaged with Microsoft Windows, other Microsoft software applications, and many PostScript computer printers. The typeface was designed in 1982 by Robin Nicholas and Patricia Saunders for Monotype Typography. It is generally understood that Arial was meant as a cheaper substitute for (but not an identical copy of) Linotype's popular Helvetica. However, a close examination of Helvetica, Arial, and Univers reveals that the latter two are in many respects more similar than the former two. Most of the more striking differences between Arial and Helvetica are actually common to Arial and Univers; the angled tail of the "1", the absence of a tail on the "G", and the angled top of the "t" are good examples.

Arial is also a typeface family comprising standard Arial (Arial Std) and variants, including Arial Black, Bold, Extra Bold, Condensed, Italic, Light, Medium, Monospaced, Narrow, and Rounded. Arial Alternative Regular and Arial Alternative Symbol are standard fonts in Windows ME, and can also be found in Windows XP's installation CD. Arial Alternative Symbol contains 2x3 braille characters.

1 Design characteristics
2 Distribution
3 Controversy
4 Arial Variants
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Design characteristics

Helvetica (in red) overlaid with Arial (in blue)

Embedded in version 3.0 of the OpenType version of Arial is the following description of the typeface:

Contemporary sans serif design, Arial contains more humanist characteristics than many of its predecessors and as such is more in tune with the mood of the last decades of the twentieth century. The overall treatment of curves is softer and fuller than in most industrial style sans serif faces. Terminal strokes are cut on the diagonal which helps to give the face a less mechanical appearance. Arial is an extremely versatile family of typefaces which can be used with equal success for text setting in reports, presentations, magazines etc, and for display use in newspapers, advertising and promotions.

Though nearly identical to Helvetica in both proportion and weight (see figure), the design of Arial is in fact a variation of Monotype's Grotesque series, and was designed with computer use in mind. Subtle changes and variations have been made to both the letterforms and the spacing between characters, in order to make it more readable on screen and at various resolutions.

[edit] Distribution

Arial was introduced as a TrueType font in 1990, and as a PostScript font in 1991. The TrueType edition has shipped as part of Microsoft Windows since the introduction of Windows 3.1 in 1992. Microsoft chose Arial over Helvetica as a cost-cutting measure.

Since 1999, Microsoft Office has shipped with Arial Unicode MS, a version of Arial that includes many international characters from the Unicode standard. This version of the typeface is the most widely distributed pan-Unicode font.

PostScript does not require support for a specific set of fonts, but Arial and Helvetica are among the 40 or so typeface families that PostScript level 3 devices typically support.^[1]

[edit] Controversy

While the inclusion of Arial with Windows has made it one of the most common typefaces in the world, it is controversial in typography circles. Some designers dislike the font because since Arial is based on Monotype Grotesque, while sharing glyphwidths with Helvetica, they view Arial as a Helvetica stand-in. However, Arial also has its own unique features. ^[2]

[edit] Arial Variants

There are many fonts named Arial, but not all of them look like what the font name suggests. Here are the known variations:

Arial: Arial Regular, Arial Bold, Arial Italic, Arial Bold Italic, Arial Unicode MS.

Arial Black: Arial Black, Arial Black Italic. This family is known for extra bold characters.
Arial Narrow: Arial Narrow Regular, Arial Narrow Bold, Arial Narrow Italic, Arial Narrow Bold Italic. This family is known for narrow characters.

Arial Rounded: Arial Rounded Bold. The regular versions of the rounded glyphs can be found in Gulim, Microsoft's Korean font set.
Arial Alternative: Arial Alternative Regular, Arial Alternative Symbol. Arial Alternative Symbol contains only 2x3 braille characters.

[edit] See also

Core fonts for the Web

[edit] References

^ PLR3 Supplement, appendix D (1999) and The Adobe PostScript 3 font set; accessed April 29, 2006.
^ Mark Simonson:
- The Scourge of Arial
- How to tell Arial, Helvetica, and Grotesque apart
The origins and distinguishing characteristics of Arial and its predecessors, accessed on 2006-04-29.
Note: while Mark Simonson dislikes Arial, this is mostly based on its history and some features he considers "out of place" because they are not the same as in other Grotesque fonts.