Members of the Helvetica clan have written reams of disparaging words about their Microsoft imitator, the typeface Arial. Poor kid. We were happy to see that Arial has found solace in the arms of Times New Roman. Details of their union are sketchy, but you'll find the pair getting along just fine in ariapenciroman by Danish typeface designer Christoph Windmueller. FYI: that's Arial-penciled-Roman for the deconstructionists among you.

The designer considers Arial and Times New Roman--two of the most famous of Western typefaces. We would use the word infamous in Arial's case, as there are those who say this typeface owes everything to Linotype Helvetica and was Microsoft Corporation's foxy way to get around font licensing issues. Controversy aside, Windmueller has seen fit to introduce Arial to a serif with deep connections to the venerable London Times.

The san serif is the dominant style in Ariapenciroman. Hints of Times Roman's blocky serifs appear in a few letters, such as the uppercase E, F, and a lovely J, whereas lowercase legacies include the charming rounded ears (g), terminals (c, s) and tail (j) of the original news font. All cases share an outline-style filled with rough pencil-shading. Clever, that.

Ariapenciroman is a typeface made for display not text, although the letterspacing is excellent. You'll see some pixelation as you blow the letters up, but that only serves to enhance the gritty quick-sketch feel of this font. The designer has been known to reverse the type in white over black for a chalkboard feel with grunge overtones.

This is only a 53-character font set, but there's a reason for the missing numerals and punctuation. Windmueller built his creation in Rob Meek's FontStruct application, using thousands of tiny digital bricks over the course of the grid. The price for his airy pencil style is a hefty unzipped file size of 426KB--close to the FontStruct download limit.

Windmueller has hinted that an additional set for ariapeciroman is in the works with numerals, punctuation, and a few surprises. We look forward to the day this hybrid's offspring arrive, but there's nothing to stop us from putting ariapenciroman to work now--for non-commercial purposes, of course.

Note: To use this font, unzip the folder and install the .ttf file in the folder C:\Windows .

--Kate Godfrey