15. 11. 09
Arial do and Arial don’t
Arial is an ugly typeface, most of us would agree. For non-designers, however, there may practical reasons now and again to use it as a quasi non-typeface.
But why use this ugly systemfont in metal, stone or another durable material? I see more and more of those applications, and I cannot think of one good reason why anybody should do this.
The example below is an appropriate use of Arial. Setting a Zimbabwean banknote for 100 Billion Dollars in anything else would have been an insult.
by erik
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9 Responses to “Arial do and Arial don’t”:
1
Totally agree, its just plain ugly. I’ve taken some photos of Arial in France, available at my flickr account http://www.flickr.com/photos/designworkplan/sets/72157622406121781/ take a look at the stone building, its hurting my eyes these huge Arial letters…
Sander
November 17th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
2
Nice point about the money.
Youssef Sarhan
November 24th, 2009 at 15:52 pm
3
Agree, but sometimes its useful when we need to work with text in restricted work space…
Slavik
November 29th, 2009 at 18:35 pm
4
Well, in my very own point of view I think this kind of typography is very commonly used in countries like Mexico because unfortunately the predominant operating system as a word processor has the default Arial font. Besides the government agencies in the country are unacceptable negligence in design in general is concerned. Personally I would have used the font Meta OT
hehe.
I hope this translation is understandable because I used the Google translator and not that such work. besides that I do not speak English or if I speak Spanish with hard xD jeje.
I hope you visit me in my Twitter: http://twitter.com/EricLariz
EricLariz
December 14th, 2009 at 00:03 am
5
I also think that Arial is not a nice font. This text presents a point of view of a very good typographer but I know people who will defend Comic Sans claiming that the font is the prettiest in the world:)
Arek
January 15th, 2010 at 09:34 am
6
Oh my god! THEY PUT ARIAL ON MONEY!!??
Im not in the design industry and I’m still shocked.
I remember thinking when watching the movie Helvetica when u compared Helv to McDonalds, i was thinking… if Helvetica is McDonalds, what is Arial… Hospital Food?
WBrodie
February 23rd, 2010 at 22:43 pm
7
Whose Helvetica does at least as well as Arial in the 8 – 16 pixel height range?
Reynir Heiðberg Stefánsson
April 13th, 2010 at 13:36 pm
8
Sadly, here in Mexico, government offices everywhere seem to use only Arial for this type of thing. I can’t explain it…
Kena Kitchengs
August 8th, 2010 at 14:59 pm
9
great site, travel on the internet through which I ended up here, so I let love greetings there. klaus
klaus
August 23rd, 2010 at 10:28 am
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