@Simon:
Yeah verdana and tahoma both have huge x-heights, and are ugly as hell in print (Georgia has an increased x-height too, but it’s at least vaguely readable in print).
My favorite font for web pages is Verdana. Cambria is a great choice for the default font for Word 2007 and Vista.
That cracktro was mostly likely created with Fontrix
Thank you! That is what I was racking my brain trying to remember! Here’s a scan of the manual for “Volume 15” that I converted to PNG, cleaned up, and hosted locally:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/images/fontrix-fontpak-vol-15-p1.png
Here’s the source. Lots and lots more available:
http://boutillon.free.fr/Underground/Anim_Et_Graph/Fontrix/Scans/
Ban Comic Sans?! Hell, no, you barbarians!
I’m pretty sure you’re kidding, but some people apparently write code using Comic Sans as their code font (I am not kidding, either), and it’s still widely abused.
You may not like the new fonts, but Microsoft appears to be spending a pile of money designing new ones. And others seem to agree that the new fonts are pretty good:
The new “C” fonts from Microsoft in Vista and Office 2007 are of extremely high quality.
http://neosmart.net/blog/2006/a-comprehensive-look-at-the-new-microsoft-fonts/
However-- and this is the big, screaming, all-caps variety of HOWEVER – these fonts require ClearType to look good. They are designed around RGB anti-aliasing and look like emulsified crap when ClearType is not enabled.
Niyaz: I’m pretty sure that Mr. Gates wasn’t the richest person in the world when Arial starting appearing in Windows. That was in version… 3.0? 3.1?
“Helvetica” is a great documentary with a ton of insightful commentary, especially in the bonus section where the whole interviews with the designers interviewed for the documentary are shown. Interestingly (and probably intentionally), many of the logos and signs in the movie don’t show Helvetica, but Arial, or a similar Helvetica clone.
For the gold standard in books on typography, pick up “The Elements of Typographic Style” by Robert Bringhurst.
“My favorite font for web pages is Verdana.”
Ditto.
@Sean:
Please be careful when making comments on legal issues. The law on fonts and copyright is different in, say, the US vs. most of Europe.
How to get rich:
Make an operating system. Don’t buy a good font for it. Use a free similar looking font instead. You will become rich from the savings of not licensing the font.
What?! Nobody mentioned Comic Sans?! Or Century Gothic?! 
But this article is starting an interesting discussion. I’ll be checking back.
For those who may not believe it, there are published reports that indicate that the choice of font affects comprehension and readability. A good set of references can be found here:
http://www.unc.edu/~jkullama/inls181/final/bibliography.html
Also, a great book and I haven’t seen mentioned here yet is Robin Williams’ (NOT THE Robin Williams, but a female design expert) The Non-Designer’s Design and Type Books. She does a wonderful job of explaining what typography is and why one should care, in a way understandable to non-designers.
Only you Jeff can turn a post about fonts into something worth reading…
I fancy Georgia on the web in clean layouts, Times in busy layouts, Bookman Old for the ‘Old Spice’ in me, and Courier New/10 Pitch when coding. Can you tell a lot about someone’s personality by the font they prefer?
I hope this is on a top 10 reasons to hate Microsoft list.
Arial first appeared in Windows 3.1, when Microsoft added support for TrueType. At the time they wanted to license fonts to ship with every copy of Windows–a high-volume, low-fee strategy that was at odds with how the font industry worked at the time. (At the time, I believe a single font might have sold for $250 per user, which is more than the cost of Windows.) I believe Monotype was the only company willing to license fonts to Microsoft on those terms, which is why you have Arial instead of Helvetica.
Incidentally, Times New Roman, like most modern serif fonts, is derived from a script developed by the Holy Roman Empire around 800 CE, which added lower-case letter to Roman capitals (which were themselves far older).
Helvetica is a crappy typeface. Print out a lower case ‘a’ so it fills a 8.5 x 11 page, put it on the wall and look at it carefully – it’s full of flaws.
Helvetica is also devoid of commercial value because it’s the official typeface of the IRS. Americans subliminally associate it with pain, just like baby boomer associate disco with Watergate, inflation, and burning up two gallons of gas waiting in line to fill your tank.
Incidentally, the Stendig Calendar is set in Helvetica and looks beautiful. (Helvetica’s numerals are nice.)
My favorite font for web pages is Times New Roman. Verdana is a best choice for the default font for Word 2007 and Vista.
Add Colin Wheildon’s “Type and Layout,” co-authored by advertising legend David Ogilvy, to the classic works on type and design. Arial for text? Turns out to be not quite such a good idea as a million engineers and Internet looky-loos imagine.
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