History of Arial and Helvetica fonts
Arial was originally known as Sonoran Sans Serif and became to be known as Arial after its inclusion in Windows by Microsoft. Versions 2.76 and later include Arabic (on non italic fonts) and Hebrew glyphs. Versions 5.00 support Latin C, Latin D, Greek Extended, Cyrillic supplement and Coptic characters. Monotype currently owns the copyright for the Arial font.
An example of this font style is found in the IBM Sonoran Pi Sans Serif family. This IBM Subclass is not directly reflected in the 12/87 ISO/IEC 9541-5 draft standard, though it is indirectly by the ISO Sans Serif Class and Gothic Subclass (implies that all characters of the font exhibit the design appearance, while only a subset of the. Math, PI, and Sonoran fonts. This topic lists the Math, PI, and Sonoran 240-pel raster fonts that are included in the z/OS® Font Collection. Table 1 provides this information: Font name. The name of the font. An eight-character name, with 'T1' as the prefix, that identifies the code page. Jun 10, 2020 Microsoft Sans Serif font is a very legible User Interface (UI) font. It was designed to be metrically compatible with the MS Sans bitmap font that shipped in early versions of Microsoft Windows. History of Arial and Helvetica fonts. Arial was originally known as Sonoran Sans Serif and became to be known as Arial after its inclusion in Windows by Microsoft. Versions 2.76 and later include Arabic (on non italic fonts) and Hebrew glyphs. Versions 5.00 support Latin C, Latin D, Greek Extended, Cyrillic supplement and Coptic characters.
Helvetica was designed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmannas. It was a new sans serif typeface that could compete with Akzidenz-Grotesk in the Swiss market. Created based on Schelter-Grotesk it was originally known as Die Neue Haas Grotesk. Helvetica was a neutral typeface that had clarity and no intrinsic meaning in its form.
Differences in characters
Helvetica and Arial share many similar characters but some characters are different. The x- height of both Arial and Helvetica are same, which is why they are often confused for each other. The Differences lie in small details.
The a in Helvetica has a tail while Arial does not. The bowl of 'a' flows back into the stem like 's' in Helvetica, where as the bowl is intersected with a slight curve in Arial.
The top of 't' is cut off at angles in Arial whereas in Helvetica 't' has straight cuts. The end strokes of 'S' and 'C' are horizontal in Helvetica while in Arial they are at an angle.
'G' in Arial has no spur at bottom and curve meets the stem at an angle. The 'G' in Helvetica has a spur at bottom of stem and the curve at bottom flows into the stem.
In Arial 'R' the tail flows down and to right from center and straightens out at an angle to the end. The tail of 'R' in Helvetica flows out from center, curves straight down and ends in a slight curve to the right.
Serif Font Download
Arial contains more humanist characteristics than Helvetica which is originally Grotesk. The overall treatment of curves is softer and fuller in Arial when compared to Helvetica. Arial has diagonal terminal strokes giving it a less mechanical appearance than Helvetica which has straight cuts.
Legibility
Arial and Helvetica are not the most legible typefaces because — like many sans serif typefaces — they have indistinguishable capital i and lower case L. One example cited by designer Viljami Salminen in his article Typography for User Interfaces is the word 'illiterate'.
Sonoran Sans Serif Font Examples
Sonoran Sans Serif Font Crossword
Salminen goes on to write that
Some people would also agree that Helvetica sucks for any type of UI work since it wasn’t really developed for use on screen displays. When Apple “momentarily” switched to using Helvetica as their main interface typeface, it caused real usability and readability issues for certain users.
Differences in Usage
Arial can be found in Microsoft Windows, other Microsoft software applications, Apple Mac OS, PostScript computer printers, Minitel/ Prestel teletext systems, hyper terminals etc.
Helvetica can be spotted in commercial wordmarks like 3M, American Airlines, American Apparel, AT&T, Jeep, BMW, Lufthansa, Microsoft, Toyota, Motorola etc. Helvetica is widely used in Mac OS X, iPhone OS and iPod. It is used by the U.S. government in federal income tax forms and NASA uses it on Space Shuttle orbiter. It is used in subway signs, and has been adopted as the official font signage since 1989.
Variants
Variants of Arial include Arial Bold, Rounded, Italic, Unicode MS, Black, Narrow, Special and many more. Arial Baltic, Arial CE, Arial Cyr, Arial Greek, Arial Tur are aliases created in the Font Substitutes section of WIN.INI by Windows. Monotype sells Arial in reduced character sets, such as Arial CE, Arial WGL, Arial Cyrillic, Arial Greek, Arial Hebrew, Arial Thai. Arial glyphs are also used in fonts developed for non-Latin environments, including Arabic Transparent, BrowalliaUPC, Cordia New, CordiaUPC, Miriam, Miriam Transparent, Monotype Hei, and Simplified Arabic.
Helvetica’s language variant includes Cyrillic version and Helvetica Greek. Other variants include Helvetica Light, Compressed, Textbook, Inserat, Rounded, Narrow, Neue Helvetica, Neue Helvetica W1G and Helvetica World.