Arial Nova is an updated version of the popular Arial typeface. Like Arial, Arial Nova is a sturdy sans serif with a no-nonsense style and a range of weights and widths, suitable for text or display use on screen or off. But where Arial was constrained by the technical needs of typesetting in the 1980s, Arial Nova is free of those constraints.
Arial Nova takes the design back to its roots. Character spacing has been adjusted and a number of understated modifications were made to the design, which means that it will not match the spacing of Arial. The result is a smoother, more elegant typeface that still retains its robust industrial qualities, and that works even better in extended text.
Monotype’s Robin Nicholas designed the original Arial, based on even earlier Monotype sans serif typefaces; later, with Patricia Saunders of the Monotype drawing office, Nicholas modified Arial to become one of the Windows core font families. For Windows 10 in 2015, he returned to the design in order to bring back some of its lost characteristics and bring it up to date.
