When working with system fonts, you need to stop and ask yourself, is this something I can even work with? I have selected the top three system fonts based on accessibility, history and functional properties. Don’t get me wrong, I am not head over heels for any of these fonts. But based on my limited selection I have chosen Helvetica, Georgia, and Verdana.

I have not included any of the new Windows Vista fonts because they have not been made accessible to me. In the words of Adam Gedde, the Great, “Don’t rely on anything from Microsoft to be free, available or to work”. I see some of the new Windows Vista fonts have a contemporary look and functional properties. However, I am not willing to pay $299.00 for system fonts when I would rather be spending my cash money on fonts from Emigre, Hoefler & Frere-Jones, 2Rebels, or Under Ware, just to name a few.

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Welcome to As The Platform Fills, a weekly series reporting on the latest sightings, observances, and events taking place right here — outside our office — in downtown Minneapolis overlooking the Nicollet Mall Light Rail Platform. The lives we observe are complex. The dramas we record are real. Things get weird. Stay tuned each week for more real platform action.

It was just another morning at the office. I was clicking, dragging and typing when I heard muffled gasps down the hall from one my coworker’s offices. Then a shriek. Then a “Holy shit!” and some shocked, cackling type of laughter (Must’ve been Joe). Soon footsteps pattered in my direction, and I was instructed that I needed to look out the window at the platform. Excited, as I always am at these moments of platform drama, I popped up eagerly to look out the window. “What the!”, I exclaimed. This couldn’t be real. But it was very real. Someone had actually driven about 50 feet onto the train track. Not only that, but they had managed to get half the car up on two wheels onto the platform, which is about 2 feet above street level. We all stood gawking, jaws open. Many questions entered my mind…

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