A new old alternative for Arial?
It seems that lately more and more people are pointing out that Arial is everywhere. Beyond it popping up frequently in print it’s basically omnipresent on the web. At small sizes it is not as big of an annoyance, it is those large headlines that really stick out.
With the install base of Arial larger than most, if not all, nicer typefaces I began wondering about its ubiquity and what alternatives could be found. Looking through the font list on my PC and the font-survey results at Code Style I came across Microsoft Sans Serif.
According to Code Style it is the most common font on Windows based machines, clocking in at 99.59%. San Serif is very similar to Arial with a few major differences. The infamous capital R while similar is tamed down a bit with a taller, wider bowl and the slope of the stem is steeper. As far as the capitals go, Microsoft Sans Serif looks like a cross between Arial and Helvetica though has a slightly lighter weight than the two. The lowercase forms are more Humanist. Similar to Syntax or Lucida but with less contrast.
With all the Arial bashing and not many solutions to attend to the masses rather than we designers, I am curious what the community thinks about Microsoft Sans Serif… I’ve created a page to show case the 3 in a live environment.
