I’m feeling in the mood to start back up the What I Learned Today… mini series. Everyday I learn something new either about myself or about the world, but ultimately both, and share my findings. During the previous mini series, I learned serpentine is California’s state rock, emoticons emote hate (at least for me) and Gloria Gaynor’s “I will Survive” was the number one song on the billboard charts when I was born. Let’s see what this next month of my life will unveil. For today I learned…

I tend to use humanist san-sarif fonts.

Many people have a favorite font, or even going so far as loathing others. After reading a post on Everyday Stranger called Font of Knowledge, I thought about my own bias for fonts.

In everything I do, I lean towards using san-sarif (you know, the ones without the little end cappers)… in particular, the humanist san-sarif variety.  These fonts include Calibri (my personal favorite), Johnston, Lucida Grande, Segoe UI, Gill Sans, Myriad, Frutiger, Trebuchet MS (second favorite), Tahoma, Verdana and Optima (a.k.a. Zapf Humanist).  According to Wikipedia (I know, great resource), “these are the most calligraphic of the sans-serif typefaces, with some variation in line width and more legibility than other sans-serif fonts.”

Calibri is my default and not just because Microsoft Office comes set up that way. The font really does represent the image I want to portray. Petite, beautiful and clear. Not overbearing or silly.

Arial, the PC knock off font of Helvetica, is the choice font at work… as it is at many companies. Clear and rounded for anyone to read.  It wasn’t until after I watched the font lover’s documentary, Helvetica, I realized that PC’s have Arial and not Helvetica.  If you love (or hate) fonts and graphic design, you NEED to see this movie… currently streaming instantly on Netflix.

As a special note, Helvetica and Arial both fall under the Neo-grotesque san-sarif classification. New gross. Gotta love it.

Image source: Helvetica robot from Jonathon Yule’s Invdr gallery of robots made from various sans-serif fonts.