Don’t use Helvetica for absolutely everything

This. For the love of God. So says Robin Wicker, a graduate of University College Falmouth, in a flickr pool for graduates to pass on their wisdom to incoming students. And so says me.

Attorneys should know by now that Helvetica (or Microsoft’s bastard spinoff, Arial) is a terrible, terrible font choice for use in legal documents. Book fonts (i.e., fonts with serifs, and not newspaper fonts like Times New Roman) are far more appropriate. But don’t take my word for it. Here is what the 7th Circuit has to say (PDF link) in its excellent typography guide.

However, Helvetica is still a very popular font for graphic designers, and for good reason. There is even a fairly entertaining movie about Helvetica. But it quickly loses its appeal in long passages of text.