Proxima Nova is the new Helvetica

It’s been two years now, since the majority of web startups, blogs and everything in between is doing a massive use of one of Mark Simonson’s biggest successes to date: Proxima Nova. Like Helvetica in the last decade, it’s quickly becoming the new standard for the web, although I do not think it could be used in any case. I’ve used it mainly for bold typos and headers, but it looks like many fellow designers does not see it like me, using it for long reads, where I would usually use a more readable serif typeface, like the one used here on Medium: FF Tisa Web Pro.

I love this font, don’t get me wrong; I’ve been using it pretty much everywhere actually, but the fact that everybody else is using lately forced me to make different choices in my latest client works. Even if I did not want to stop using it, and eventually made a large use of it in first sketches, clients started to complain because they wanted and deserved a less disgraced identity, and they were damn right.

I do not want to sound arrogant, but I have to pay attention to the identity of my clients; if 10 years ago they did not want me to use Helvetica because it was inflated, now they have the same thought for what is one of the most used webfonts of 2012, at least on the web, according to Webink.

I am in the process of looking for something similar but less inflated, and still I didn’t came up with a solution; I am open to discuss this on Twitter and accept suggestion or critiques.