Change default font from Arial to Helvetica

[WalterBeiter]

I just can't stand copycats. I am about to deinstall Arial just to see what happens in Affinity.

 

 

[Dave Harris]

In the medium term we need to make all document defaults user-defined.

 

I'm not sure what Arial has to do with copycats. If it's not available, Affinity should switch to Helvetica, and if that's not available either, it picks something at random.

[Hokusai]

Dave,

You must not be a Typography guy so I will fill you in, Arial is a copy of Helvetica.

[Ben]

Actually - Dave IS our typography guru... at least as far as everything technical about fonts goes.

 

And, if you think Arial and Helvetica are the same, you really need to look a little closer. They are not the same at all.

[Hokusai]

Ben,

 

That is interesting that you and Dave both don't know that Arial was made to look like Helvetica. I thought it was a well known fact.

 

From Wikipedia "Arial was created to be metrically identical to the popular typeface Helvetica, with all character widths identical, so that a document designed in Helvetica could be displayed and printed correctly without having to pay for a Helvetica license."

[Dave Harris]

"Metrically identical" means the character widths and general weights are the same. The shapes of the characters, however, are not. You can see this yourself if you put the same text in the two fonts side by side and look closely at the letters. They are different. Monotype could have copied Helvetica, and probably would have got away with it - other type foundaries did - but they didn't. Probably because they shared your views on copycats.

 

"Displayed and printed correctly" essentially means the line ends are the same for wrapping text. Usually when switching between one font and another, the characters have slightly different widths, and that affects how many words can fit on a line, and with a frame of text that sometimes means words will move up or down a line. It may even make the text a line longer so it no longer fits in the frame at all, or a line shorter so there is an unsightly gap at the bottom. Either way the page layout is no longer right.

 

That's the problem Arial was trying to solve. It wasn't trying to rip off the work the designer of Helvetica did for the shapes of the letters.

 

http://ilovetypography.com/2007/10/06/arial-versus-helvetica/ has some illustrations of the different character shapes.

[Hokusai]

Dave,

 

Thanks for the info and the link. The link was a very informative. I'm sorry I think you may have misunderstood me. I know that Arial and Helvetica aren't exactly the same just that they are very similar looking. I would guess that people who aren't into typography and fonts wouldn't be able to tell them apart. I was just explaining what Walter was saying. I could understand his point because ever since I started working in graphics, Arial has always been considered as an inferior version of Helvetica (at least in the print/design world). Now I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with Arial and I'm not saying that it is an inferior font just that many people who have worked in desktop publishing, pre-press, or design might think that because they are normally taught that Arial is a Windows copy of Helvetica. This probably started back in the early days of computer typesetting and while it isn't true, it is widely believed. In fact, until I read the page that you linked to, I thought that Arial was a copy of Helvetica (I knew that they weren't exactly the same but I figured that Arial had a few changes so as not to infringe on any copyright or something like that). That was what was taught to me back when I first studied typography at university. Thanks for setting me straight. Just keep in mind that some Mac users still consider Arial a "Windows" font and so they have negative thoughts about it.

[Dave Harris]

I was aware of Arial's history, but I hadn't realised that's what Walter was refering to, so thanks for explaining. I think whatever font we pick as default is unlikely to be what a designer wants for her current project so having user-definable defaults is the only real solution. We picked Arial partly because it is available on more platforms because of its cheaper licencing.

[Hokusai]

Dave,

 

I agree with you completely. The only way to make everyone happy is to have user-definable defaults. 

[JGD]

I was aware of Arial's history, but I hadn't realised that's what Walter was refering to, so thanks for explaining. I think whatever font we pick as default is unlikely to be what a designer wants for her current project so having user-definable defaults is the only real solution. We picked Arial partly because it is available on more platforms because of its cheaper licencing.

 

Interesting and well-thought reasoning… But isn't Serif only supposed to look at other platforms only 12 months from now? ;)

 

The thing is, Helvetica has been, by default, available on OS X installations since its very inception… Then again, so is Arial, since it's considered a “web-safe” font and, thus, has to be available on OS X on account of its ubiquity. So I can see why choosing Arial isn't such a big deal, and well-justified… And, come to think of it, having the default be Arial will free you from the “AvantGarde/Myriad/Minion effect”, which are the tell-tale signs that a particular “designer” probably lacked training and just went with the default font (which can very well be and indeed sometimes is the best choice for a given project, thus triggering some false-positives) of the software package of his choice.

 

That, in itself and IMHO, is not a very good endorsement of neither Corel or Adobe… If Affinity uses Arial as the default, professional designers (and some rare non-designers, and I know a few) will be left thinking that a lesser “design” (and, really, I may come of as snobbish for using such wording but those are very easy to spot and should have no place in a society were many professional, properly-educated designers *are* starving or forced to migrate – I come from a country where that is, indeed, the norm) done in Affinity was done by someone without font (or even design) knowledge in either Affinity or any of the aforementioned software packages (or even, dare I say it, some random old version of Microsoft Publisher or even PowerPoint)… Well played, Serif, well played. That's some fine piece of extremely convoluted reverse-psychology “non-branding” (or “white-branding”?) you've got going on there. ^^

 

Well, random and snobbish considerations aside, if I may add and since you brought it up, could Serif look into some deals with font foundries and type designers? I'm guessing that one of the reasons Affinity products are so inexpensive is that, as far as I can tell, it doesn't come with any bundled fonts. I wouldn't say that CS5/5.5/6 was competitive (not the full, professional version, that is), but the fonts were a bit of a “consolation prize” after the price-gouging. On the other hand, you ended up paying for fonts which you might never use anyway…

 

So, can we expect someting (optional, of course) along the lines of TypeKit in the future? Or maybe discounted fonts bought as In App Purchases, which could become available system-wide? Who knows, maybe even a full-fledged font store like FontExplorer had? As long as its OpenType support is best-of-breed, as it looks to be shaping up to become very soon, I don't mind Affinity being fully BYOF (bring-your-own-fonts, I just coined the term), but it surely would be great to see Affinity supporting leading independent type designers and cutting deals that could make everyone win, without necessarily having to jack up the price tab of the apps themselves…

[billtils]

Interesting bit of history there!   Where do the other similar looking but not identical sans-serif fonts, such as Geneva and Europa fit in?

 

And, (as I'm not sure why the topic was raised, so apologies in advance if I am either stating the obvious or miles off target) since AP is being created to run on OS X so why can't it use OS X's fonts? 

 

(Sorry, I tried but can't resist - but why is a company called Serif using sans serif fonts as a default ...)

[Dave Harris]

We now have user-definable defaults, in the current beta and forthcoming appstore release. Select the Art Text or Frame Text tool (they have different defaults), change the font to what you want (that should set the default for this document), then use Edit > Defaults > Save. That should set the defaults for new documents, too. It'll save all the object defaults, not just the text ones.

[billtils]

Thanks for this info Dave - good to know.

[Patriq]

Dave, thank you for posting information on how to create default text settings. I recently purchased Affinity Designer/Photo and I am learning on a need to know basis as I design.