The dubious history of Arial
by Stuart BownessAs I have been working more on deepening my knowledge in the field of typography this year I’ve been steadily studying a broad swath of common typefaces. This week I chose to focus specifically on “Arial” which is almost ubiquitous on the web today. My aim in studying this typeface was to understand its origins and history so that I can better recognize when it is acceptable to use this typeface and when it is not. Surprisingly, Arial appears to be a complete knock-off of Helvetica (which, unless you are a type nerd you might not know) and has stolen both its proportion and weight. Arial has become a success on the web and also in print mostly as a result of Microsoft adopting the typeface early in development of Windows 3.1 as a method to reduce costs and not pay licensing fees to the creators of Helvetica.
When Microsoft made TrueType the standard font format for Windows 3.1, they opted to go with Arial rather than Helvetica, probably because it was cheaper and they knew most people wouldn’t know (or even care about) the difference. Apple also standardized on TrueType at the same time, but went with Helvetica, not Arial, and paid Linotype’s license fee. Of course, Windows 3.1 was a big hit. Thus, Arial is now everywhere, a side effect of Windows’ success, born out of the desire to avoid paying license fees.
Source: The Scourge of Arial
After reading the source cited above, I discovered in particular that despite its pervasiveness, a professional designer would rarely use Arial. Apparently to professionals, Arial is looked down on as a not-very-faithful imitation of a typeface that is no longer fashionable. One might even go so far as to say that Arial has never been fashionable with the elitist typography fashionistas who were familiar with its origins.
Additionally, I also found an excellent article on recognizing the visual distinctions between Helvetica and Arial.
No longer using Arial for body text (check).
If you want to use Helvetica for body text, Arial is sadly your closest option, considering that barely any PCs have Helvetica installed..
I think my preference then would probably to use Verdana instead of Arial. At the very least I would not make Arial the first item in the CSS ie. font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;
Good point though on the PC, when will Microsoft get with the program and begin installing more than a handful of poor typefaces by default.