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> Arial — A universal favorite for presentations and business documents

Because it used to* be available out of the box, everywhere. Not because it’s such a great typeface. I can’t imagine the sequence of short-sighted enterprise design decisions that puts someone in a position where they have to use Arial through Adobe Fonts.

* I guess that’s no longer true because of Android?

3 comments

On the one hand, if you're editing a graphics file for a client that already uses Arial, you need Arial. Full stop. It doesn't matter if it's great or not.

On the other hand, Arial is pre-installed not just on Windows, but Macs and iOS. And Adobe doesn't make e.g. Illustrator for Android or Linux.

So what Creative Cloud app runs on an OS that doesn't already have Arial? What am I missing? Do they have something that runs on Android?

I don’t know enough about Adobe Fonts and don’t trust their own writing about it, but it seems like it supports web. So I suppose it might be a way to get a consistently poor typographic experience on all platforms.

Oh, that would make sense, as a webfont for Linux and Android.

Still, Arial isn't poor. It's nearly Helvetica. It's a knockoff, but all it does is simplify some letterforms. It's not like it destroys the spacing or balance or weight or anything. You're talking as if it were Comic Sans...

Any typeface must be judged in two ways - the raw quality of the letter shapes, proportions, spacing, etc - and the baggage of associations it provokes. In both respects, Arial makes a design look cheap.

Most people couldn't tell the difference between Helvetica and Arial at all. And Helvetica is one of the most iconic, classic, respected designs out there.

The only people it might look cheap to are graphic designers. So who cares?

Yes, if you can't tell the difference and don't care, use it! That's exactly the circumstance where it's used, and the reason it is associated with cheapness.

People do use it. So stop complaining about it. It isn't associated with cheapness except in the minds of a tiny percentage of people like you.

I mean, like you admitted, it's not even a question of aesthetic qualities like the balance of letterforms. You really care about the extra-aesthetic connotations of whether the leg of an uppercase R is straight or squiggly? There are more important things in life. And I say this as someone who cares quite a lot about typography.

Like, sure, Palatino and Optima have strong associations with certain decades that even people who don't follow typography feel subconciously. But Helvetica vs. Arial? C'mon, I don't think so.

Talking about web and small busines: probably true. For lager company it was never really an option, because it was only licence free on windows. So no IBM ASF, iText on Solaris or other huge non-windows text renderer used arial even if they don't use a corporate design font

Yes, Arial is hot garbage. It’s a Microsoft-sponsored rebadge of Helvetica, made because Microsoft didn’t want to license an actual good type face.

This is like calling beige office walls a “universal favorite.” And I bet people at Adobe today are still confused by their poor reception on Bluesky. They lost the ability to talk to their customers years ago. They only have prisoners now.