On Tuesday 03 April 2007 06:55 am, heathenx wrote: > Yup. I just tried Helvetica. It's perfect! I just found my new > "standard". Thanks everyone.
Helvetica, developed in 1957 by Swiss graphic designer Max Miedinger, has been probably the most widely used sans-serif typeface since I was a teen, and I'm almost 63 now <smile>. It was originally named Neue Haas Grotesk (from Akzidenz Grotesk, a font designed in 1896) but the name was changed to Helvetica in 1960. Two other Sans Serif fonts which became very popular: Univers (pronounced "oo-nih-VAIR") designed by Adrian Frutiger, also from the original Akzidenz Grotesk. IBM made this font extremely popular by offering it as the default typeface for their IBM Selectric Composer system (introduced in 1966), but that probably devalued it's use among typographers as it became the mark of "cheap typesetting". (The IBM design was a bit simplified, but still quite similar.) And of course, Arial, designed in 1982 by Robin Nicholas and Patricia Saunders for Monotype Typography. According to Wikipedia (from which I refreshed my memory for this post) claims "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." So now that you know more about Helvetica, Arial, and even Univer, than you ever needed to know, choose the one that looks the best <smile>. (In the late 70s I was part owner of a Typography shop in San Mateo, California, "Helvetica Typographers"; you'd be surprised how many versions of Helvetica there are <smile>.) Jeff -- Jeff Lasman, Nobaloney Internet Services P.O. Box 52200, Riverside, CA 92517 Our blists address used on lists is for list email only voice: +1 951 643-7540, or see: "http://www.nobaloney.net/contactus.html";
