When To Use Arial And When To Use Verdana

Many of my students ask me if there are any rules concerning the use of Arial and Verdana, by far the two most popular fonts available on personal computers (using the Roman alphabet) around the world today.

Both Arial and Verdana are SANS SERIF font, and as clearly explained in my recent article both fonts lend themselves well to be used in "information" uses rather than in telling stories.

Sans Serif fonts excel particularly when used for conveying short information items like titles, captions, callouts, figure numbers, references and other short textual information.

As Verdana is particularly effective when used at very small font sizes, Arial stands out as the clear leader when needing to creating readable and professional looking titles.

Remember not to be influenced by your own personal taste and experience, which can be highly misleading when attempting to create a presentation that is:

1. more readable (more understandable)



2. professionally-looking (more credible).

   Overall Arial is a more formal and established font face, while Verdana is a highly characterized and optimized typeface best used in those instances where ...

---

posted by Robin Good on Sunday, October 31 2004
Saturday, January 21 2006

URL of this article:
http://masterview.ikonosnewmedia.com/2004/10/31/when_to_use_arial_and.htm

Recent Articles


October 01, 2008
Image Editing, Screen Capture: Visual Communication Tools From MasterViews n.109

Photo credit: Ruth Livingstone Iimmgg: Upload your images, edit them online and share them with people ScrnShots: Take screenshots and upload them directly on the web Zleek: Create photo albums with preset layouts and share them online Dropamovie: Search... read more



September 24, 2008
Web Presentation Tools And Services For Visual Communication: The Best From Sharewood n°108

Photo credit: Jos van Galen ChartGizmo: Create free charts online that you can embed anywhere Color Schemer: Get a list of the color used in a picture with their HEX codes Picfont: Add captions and text to all of... read more



September 17, 2008
Web Presentation Tools And Services For Visual Communication: The Best From Sharewood n°107

Photo credit: Mattox Pixlr: Edit all of your images online with no software to install FlickrBabel: Search for Flickr images, browse results and download the pictures you like Dumpr: Apply effects to your images without registering to any service... read more



September 10, 2008
Web Presentation Tools And Services For Visual Communication: The Best From Sharewood n°106

Photo credit: Rdragan79 Iterasi: Take screenshots of any webpage and upload them online directly Multicolor Search Lab: Search for Flickr pictures that share the same colors Piecolor: Create pie charts with no image editing skills GoAnimate: Create cartoon animations... read more



September 03, 2008
Web Presentation Tools And Services For Visual Communication: The Best From Sharewood n°105

Photo credit: Andrzej Gdula Imgares: Drag&drop images, batch edit them, and export them as video slideshows Tablefy: Easily create comparison tables that you can embed on your site PhotatoBug: Upload pictures online and create slideshows with background music TubePopper:... read more



September 01, 2008
PowerPoint Tools And Presentation Design News - September 1st, 2008

Photo credit: Sanja Gjenero... read more



August 27, 2008
Web Presentation Tools And Services For Visual Communication: The Best From Sharewood n°104

Photo credit: Rdragan79 Gifmake: Upload GIF, JPG and PNG images and create animated GIFs PicShadow: Add a dropdown shadow to any picture with no photo editing skills TextAnim: Animate text pictures with many options and export them in GIF... read more

Search this site for more with