Arial

Not to be confused with Aerial or Ariel.

Arial, sometimes marketed as Arial MT, is a neo-grotesque sans-serif typeface and computer font packaged with Microsoft Windows, other Microsoft software applications, Apple Mac OS X, 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 (but not so close as to invite litigation) for 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.

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.

Arial includes Arabic glyphs that are also found in Times New Roman, which have more varied stroke widths than the Latin, Greek, Cyrillac glyphs found in the font. Arial Unicode MS uses monotone stroke widths on Arabic glyphs, similar to Tahoma.

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. Some claim that 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.

Typographic tempest?

The inclusion of Arial with Windows has made it one of the most widely distributed typefaces in the world. Given that the face was developed to avoid licensing a well-known sans-serif like Helvetica or Univers, and because at the time of its release its designer was relatively unknown by design professionals, the face is frequently derided. Some designers dislike the face because though Arial is based on Monotype Grotesque, it curiously shares near identical glyph-widths with Helvetica. Arial is viewed as a de facto Helvetica stand-in, but without paying royalties, or credit, to Helvetica. However, many people are unable to tell the difference between Helvetica, Arial and other similar fonts; and most Postscript printers will by default substitute Arial with Helvetica.

Arial Variants

Many typefaces are named Arial, here are the known variations:

• Arial: Sometimes called Arial Regular to distinguish its width from Arial Narrow, it contains Arial (roman text weight), Arial Italic, Arial Bold, Arial Bold Italic, and Arial Unicode MS
• Arial Black: Arial Black, Arial Black Italic. This weight is known for being particularly heavy. this is because the face was originally drawn as a bitmap, and to increase the weight, stroke widths for bold went from a single pixel width to two pixels in width.
• Arial Narrow: Arial Narrow Regular, Arial Narrow Bold, Arial Narrow Italic, Arial Narrow Bold Italic. This family is a condensed version.
• 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 braille characters.

See also

• Core fonts for the Web

References

External links

• Arial font information (Microsoft typography)
• Arial Black font information (Microsoft typography)
• Downloadable version of Arial (Web core fonts)
• Downloadable version of Arial Black (Web core fonts)
• Helvetica vs. Arial, a Flash-based game
• A Hate-On for Arial (photo gallery)