On Jan 7, 2008, at 8:43 AM, Benoît Meunier wrote: > For a better reading experience: *Arial or Verdana?*
Arial is a bastardized version of Helvetica created because those in charge of the operating system didn't want to pay the license fee that would be required to put a proper font on their computer. (Both Apple and Microsoft are guilty of this.) My general preference for specifying the fonts for anything on a web site is generally: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Sans Serif. In that order. Even as a bastardized version, Arial is still more readable and flexible for web projects that require heavy amounts of copy. There's a long history behind Tahoma and Verdana that I won't go into. You can Google that. But Tahoma was made to give Windows95 a new look and feel for the screen, back when screen resolutions and such were much lower than they are today. (At the time, Apple had Chicago and Espy, and Microsoft was looking to create their own aesthetic to compete.) Tahoma was basically designed for 9px, 10px, 11px and 12x sizes only. (Maybe 13px as well, I forget off the top of my head.) And by designed, I mean pixel for pixel design, not outlines and curves like PostScript or TrueType fonts. It was hinted specifically for screen pixels at those specific sizes. Verdana was created as a variation of Tahoma for web work because Microsoft seemed to want the same aesthetic but needed a font that could be read with dense body copy. The web was just booming at that time and Tahoma looks like junk when used as body copy because it was designed mostly to be labels for dialog boxes. It has a much too wide feel for long stretches of copy. As such, Verdana is certainly more readable as body copy, but again, it was designed for certain small screen sizes, 9px through 12px. Try using Verdana as a 20px headline and it looks like crap. So, if you all you care about is body copy set specifically at 10px or 11px, then Verdana is fine. The moment you want to use it for headlines and such, you're out of luck and will need to specify a different headline font. I tend to specify Helvetiva Neue and Arial so I don't have to worry about the issue. Arial is tolerable and with ClearType turned on with bigger screens, in my opinion it looks far better than Verdana ever will. > - If there any studies or facts about that? You don't use studies or "facts" to choose a typeface. That would be like using a study that claims red is always the best color to use for company backgrounds. -- Andrei Herasimchuk Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. [EMAIL PROTECTED] c. +1 408 306 6422 ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
