Joanna sent me this BBC article today that said that the Helvetica font is celebrating its 50th birthday! Helvetica, for those of you who don’t know, is very similar to Arial font and is used everywhere as a basic, generic font. It’s the default font of Quark and Macs in general (I think). I’m a big fan – there are lots of variations of Helvetica (bold, black, thin, condensed, extended) that give it variety but yet keep the piece looking cohesive.

I love fonts. :-)

The article also mentions a tongue-in-cheek campaign called “Ban Comic Sans”. (Warning: they actually use comic sans on that site, so please be prepared if you click on the link.) I was immediately interested, and while I wouldn’t really want to pass a law prohibiting its use, I do think it is waay overused and inappropriately used. There are appropriate uses, mostly related to kids things and (duh) comic strips. But to use it for corporate and business communications? I am also against using fonts like Curlz and Jokerman for corporate things like business signs. They both have their place, but it think it conveys “we’re not very serious about business and we just printed everything from our home computer”.

While I’m at it, I will say that Century Gothic is a great font, as well as Futura. I’m also becoming a Gill Sans fan. For serif fonts, try Centaur or Palatino. Both great alternatives to Times New Roman.

So yeah. (I want these awesome shirts.)