Comments on: Helvetica at 50

By: Bryan

Bryan — Fri, 11 May 2007 17:24:51 +0000

Times Roman ws commissioned by The Times [the real one in London] to be readable in small type sizes so they could put more words in the same space. I only use the generic serif and sans serif in the style sheet, so people see the blog in their choice of fonts on their browser, assuming they know that they can specify their choice for default serif, sans serif, and monospaced fonts.

By: Steve Bates

Steve Bates — Fri, 11 May 2007 07:29:34 +0000

No Arial Bold;
It leaves him quite cold.
Verdana? to him, that’s emetica;
If there is no serif,
He calls out the sheriff…
You’ll not send him straight to Helvetica!

– SB the YDD

I blog mostly in MS Comic Sans, not because it’s all that easy to read, but because the site started out as a doggerel site, and I wanted a silly typeface available in any browser. Most of the major dailies seem to use something akin to Times Roman in their article body text, and it works pretty well. I particularly like what the Washington Post does… their selection of typeface, of course, not their content.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Fri, 11 May 2007 00:23:19 +0000

I quit Mensa when they start producing the Bulletin in Helvetica. I find it hard to read at a reasonable speed. When you have to stop to figure out if it was “rn” or “m”, it becomes a distraction.

By: hipparchia

hipparchia — Thu, 10 May 2007 23:36:36 +0000

helvetica [and its cousins]: nice clean unobtrusive fonts that don’t get in the way of the graphics i produce. i use arial a LOT at work. trivial? phffttt!