Catapult
Posters
The White Copycat Jumps Over The Black Icon, 2008
Adobe developed the ‘Adobe PostScipt’ language in the early eighties. Information about the Adobe Type-3-font-technology was given away but the secrets of the superior Type 1-font-technology were kept. If you wanted a Type 1 font, Adobe was the only source. Adobe did this of course to remain market leader.
In the late eighties a lot of PostScipt clones were developed to compete with Adobe. These were usually bundled with look-alike fonts because the originals were owned by Adobe and its partners. Arial seems to be based on a Grotesk but is actually drawn to the proportions and weights of Helvetica.
When Microsoft made the TrueType font the default format for Windows 3.1 they chose Arial instead of Helvetica, probably because it was cheaper and it was almost indistinguishable from the Helvetica. Arial has a dubious background and has nestled in the typographic landscape as a virus.
Arial is now one of the most popular sans serif typefaces in the world. The font is used in practically all applications made by non-professionals and even professionals sometimes! - in print, television and on the web. This is mainly because Arial is included with various Microsoft applications, including Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office.
The Arialtica symbolizes the (perverted) impact on the world of a.o. Microsoft and the consequences thereof. The ‘white Arial’ was simply placed on top of a ‘black Helvetica’ and the parts of the Helvetica that fell outside of the areas of the Arial have been cut and pasted to the new letter Arialtica.
Because the shape and kerning of the two nearly identical letters are almost the same we see particularly tiny, occasionally larger differences (eg capital R) between both letters. This approach is expressed in the poster The White Copycat Jumps Over The Black Icon.
Arial is a sans serif letter issued by Monotype and designed by Robin NICHOLAS and Patricia SAUNDERS.
Helvetica is a sans serif letter issued by Haas’sche Schriftgießerei (now at Linotype) and designed by Max MIEDINGER and Eduard HOFFMANN.
Specifications
DIMENSIONS 690 x 990 mm
PRINT Recto/verso black
NUMBER 1.000 ex.
PAPER MultiDesign White 100 g
FONTS Arialtica
Arial, Helvetiva, Arialtica
Aanwezig—Afwezig (Present—Absent), 2011
The Cold Glory / Le Château de Mai, 2010
The White Copycat Jumps Over The Black Icon, 2008
Floris Jespers, 2006
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