Arial sucks. Seriously.

I’m not a graphic designer. In fact, I don’t have an aesthetically talented bone in my body. This being said, I really don’t like Arial. Yes, Arial. You know, the font that you see pretty much everywhere – the only one besides Times New Roman anyone ever considers using.

It’s unfortunate that Arial is everywhere. Despite there being plenty of other, more aesthetically pleasing sans-serif typefaces out there, Arial remains the defacto standard in most cases. The typography snobs usually push Helvetica (Arial’s classier, Swiss forefather), as a superior alternative but the differences are minor. Though I will admit that the capital R is much nicer in Helvetica.

I have no beef with sans-serif fonts. I prefer the nice, clean lines to the stodgy, newsprint effect that serifs bring to the table. I just wish the world had some more Verdana / Tahoma. I’d be interested to see what others think about it.