How to tell Arial from Helvetica
For typeface anoraks: How to distinguish Arial and Helvetica!
This is the edge of a whole new world for me. The author, Mark Simonson, also discusses “Grotesque 215, Arial’s ancestor”, and the two sister articles (one and two) reveal much more.
Things which surprised me:
- When a font is described as “Monotype” that’s not a typographic phrase — it’s the non-profit organisation that created it.
- Arial is “cheaper” version of Grotesque, which itself was a commercial response to Helvetica.
- TrueType fonts weren’t invented by Microsoft; they were invented by Apple.
- Arial wasn’t invented by Microsoft either; it was invented by Monotype.
- The little animated paperclip in Word wasn’t invented by Microsoft… oh, no that’s not true; it was.
