Ask a room of designers to name the most popular font and you'll get a debate, a few raised eyebrows and at least one person muttering about Comic Sans. That's because there's no single answer - it really depends on where you look. Your laptop, the high street or the screen in your hand: each has its own champion.
So rather than crown one winner, let's meet the contenders, work out why they're so popular, and then let you in on the two typefaces our own customers choose again and again.
The contenders
Helvetica: the one on the shop fronts
Helvetica was born in Switzerland in 1957, designed by Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann at the Haas Type Foundry. It was originally called Neue Haas Grotesk before being renamed (rather cleverly) after the Latin name for Switzerland. It's clean, neutral and quietly confident, which is why you'll find it on everything from airport signage to some of the world's best-known logos. It even has its own feature-length documentary. Not many fonts can say that.
Arial: the one on your computer
If Helvetica is the designer's choice, Arial is the people's. Created by Monotype in 1982, it was drawn to match Helvetica's proportions, so it could be swapped in without upsetting a layout. When Microsoft bundled it with Windows in the early 1990s, it landed on hundreds of millions of desktops overnight. Many people have used Arial without ever choosing it, which brings us to the real secret of font popularity (more on that shortly).
Times New Roman: the one on your homework
Commissioned by The Times of London and first used in 1932, Times New Roman was designed to squeeze plenty of words into narrow newspaper columns while staying easy to read. It went on to become the default in Microsoft Word for years, and so the default font of a generation's essays, CVs and strongly worded letters.
Calibri and Aptos: the office favourites
Calibri replaced Times New Roman as Word's default in 2007 and a whole new generation of documents softened overnight. Microsoft has since moved on again, to a newer typeface called Aptos. Watch this space.
Roboto: the one in your pocket
Designed by Google for Android, Roboto sits on billions of phone screens and a vast number of websites. If you measure popularity by how many eyes see a font each day, it has a serious claim to the crown.
So why do some fonts win?
1. Defaults do the heavy lifting as most people never change the font they're given. Whichever typeface comes pre-installed on their device tends to become their most used, almost by accident.
2. Readability matters. These big-hitters are all easy on the eye, whether in a newspaper column, on a road sign or on a small screen.
3. Ditto Neutrality. Fonts like Helvetica and Arial don't shout. They carry almost any message without getting in the way, which makes them useful to everyone from banks to bakeries.
4. Familiarity builds trust. The more we see a typeface, the more 'right' it looks. Popularity feeds itself.
Which two fonts do our customers choose most?
At BeGolden, every name, date and message is personalised by hand, in hot foil or letterpress. We offer a range of typefaces, but two fonts consistently lead the pack and they couldn't be more different.
Abigail: the romantic
Abigail is an elegant, contemporary serif font from Sensatype Studio and its party trick is ligatures: pairs of letters that link together in graceful, unexpected ways. It's what gives a name on the cover that bespoke, one-of-a-kind feel, as if it had been lettered just for you (it has!). That's why it's so popular for wedding guest books and photo albums. Pressed in gold foil, those joined letters really come into their own.
Gill Sans: the British classic
Gill Sans was released by Monotype in 1928 and quickly became part of Britain's visual furniture. It was adopted by the London and North Eastern Railway, graced the covers of early Penguin paperbacks and was used by the BBC for years. It's clean and modern, yet it has a warmth and a subtle Englishness that stricter sans serifs lack.
It would be remiss not to mention that its designer, Eric Gill, has a deeply troubling personal legacy that came to light after his death. The typeface has long since outgrown the man, and today it belongs to the generations of readers, railway passengers and book lovers who made it a classic. We use it everyday on our albums as it has a clear, unisex,and familiar air to it
Why this split makes sense
Our customers' two favourite fonts mirror the whole history of type. On one side is the personal, expressive script; on the other the clear, timeless sans serif. One says this is about us; the other says this was made to last.
They also work beautifully together. A name (or names) in Abigail with a meaningful phrase or date in Gill Sans beneath is one of our favourite pairings.
Choosing yours
There's no wrong answer, only the right one for your story. If you'd like a little help deciding, browse our personalised albums and guest books and see how each typeface looks on the cover. Do have a look at our 'bestsellers' collection as they are popular for a reason! Alternatively, do get in touch, and we'll happily talk fonts with you for as long as you like. It's one of our favourite subjects :-)
From Anna and Bobby and the BeGolden Team