Arial is a sans-serif typeface designed by Robin Nicholas and Patricia Saunders in 1982. In computing, Arial is one of the most commonly used standard English fonts (just as Songti is for Chinese - translator), and many designers consider Arial to be a clone of Helvetica, which is detailed in Mark Simonson Studio's article "The Scourge of Arial" (Arial's Plague). With the release of Windows 3.1, Arial became a free font and quickly spread around the world. The reason Microsoft originally chose Arial was due to the exorbitant licensing fees for Helvetica.