You don't even have to know anything about typography. Without knowing anything about any typeface, after guessing and comparing the results of first few, I was able to nail 13 of 14.
I guess that anyone who knows anything about typography would answer correctly to all questions.
Clue: I went for bolder font. Also, Helvetica is a bit wider in these logos. After that, I also noticed the clue in C.
Same here, I had only MATTEL and TOYOTA wrong for that reason.
All the rest I had immediately, on the very first image there was 50% chance I had it right and I did a lucky guess, from then on I knew Helvitica was horizontal, Arial slanted.
actually a was bored after ten right answers or so. It was really easy. At first I only looked for what "looked better" because I generally like Helvetica but find Arial really ugly. After doing the first answers, I started to see the minor differences and now understand why I like Helvetica better.
The Toyota one is actually pretty obvious when you look at the O's - Helvetica O's are perfect circles, where Arial ones are flattened. As a Toyota fan, to me it makes a big difference. Arial is very unacceptable in this case.
In the cases with capital A's, you can tell by the spacing between the two "legs" of the `A`. Helvetica is more compact. The space inside `O` is more compact for Helvetica as well.
Before this test I considered the differences negligible, without really knowing what the differences are. Now I consider Helvetica much more elegant and incisive.
Helvetica is indeed the better font, but this is an unfair example because the Arial alternatives were poorly kerned, whereas the logos were (with few exceptions) expertly kerned.
Ruining the game for everyone; two things I love about Helvetica
— Terminals at right angles to the stroke. http://c.jon.gd/image/3Q0y2u323j3C . Arial looks particularly sloppy with jaunty terminals. It is possible to have a similar grotesque sans-serif feel with offset terminals (see Univers & Akzidenz Grotesk) but they're a crucial part of what give Helvetica its character.
- The uppercase R. Has a really strong leg compared to Arial's half-assed flaky leg.
I immediately got 17/20, missing only the ones where there were no lower case characters. How do you distinguish between in these 3 cases? http://imgur.com/a/NOLoI
Yes, the differences are easy to see, as everyone has said.
But the important part is that there's a difference in feel and theme that's not really measurable and identifiable in direct comparison.
The subtle difference is far more important than trying to identify the tiny details that don't really matter. And in that sense, this game (while fun and interesting) misses the point.
It's entirely measurable. Helvetica has slightly heavier strokes, which are finished at right angles or closer to that than Arial, and prefers verticals and horizontals in general compared to Arial.
Here's something interesting to do with the same test. Instead of guessing which one you think is Helvetica, choose the one you like better. Then see if Helvetica shows up more times than Arial (or vice versa).
Great idea! Personally I had no bias towards either font, but now discovered that I do in fact like Helvetica a bit more (12 out of 20 times). Would be interesting to be able to see a test like that with statistics on how many chose each font for each logo.
Dangit, I did that and discovered that I prefer Arial! I think it is (slightly) easier to read; it also seems more relaxed and fluid, less unnecessarily squared-up.
http://typewar.com/ quizzes you on letters from an increasing number of fonts, and scores you according to how many other people got a particular matchup correct. They also have "quests" that focus on a particular challenge, including Arial vs. Helvetica. http://typewar.com/quests/ I think my favorite part of the site is the statistics on how many people are confused by particular matchups.
This one is fairly easy simply because they show you a comparison. In reality, if they showed you only one type of font and if they had asked you to identify which font it was (Arial or Helvetica), then it would have been a REAL challenge :)
The thing that gave away the Mattel logo was the E. Apparently, the middle bar of the capital E in Arial is not equidistant from the outer bars, whereas the E in Helvetica has equally-spaced bars. (Or legs, or whatever the hell they are.)
This was just something I noticed for the first time while going through.
I used the following heuristics (some parts added afterwards):
1. Helvetica has level edges, Arial is angled (as ef4 said). Particularly important were "t", "e" and "a", "S", "G", C".
2a. For capital letters, if there is an "R", the Helvetica one is curved in the bottom right part while Arial uses a straight line.
2b. For a capital "Y", the Arial one has the same length in all directions while the Helvetica one is shorter at the bottom. (Alexx indicated a difference).
2c. The jags/gaps in the capital "M" extend further to the top for Arial. This can be used to figure out MATTEL.
3. Otherwise, the one that looks fatter is Helvetica.
No typographer nor designer here either, but _subjectively_ speaking:
* This test quickly 'clued me in' that a logo should give a "commanding", "authoritative", "brooks no argument" look. Helvetica, yes; Ariel, no: Ariel made some logos look downright self-satirical.
* An email client I use has Ariel as its default font. In that (two-way communication) context, where accidental antagonisms can arise, Ariel seems to "look less antagonistic"
* So this test speaks to me about appropriate fonts for two different contexts, and personal point-of-view.
* Got 20/20, but might not on a 2nd run. I'm only human.
Not a criticism, but I'm genuinely confused about the persistent misspelling of 'Arial' as 'Ariel'. Is there anyone knowledgeable about this sort of thing who can explain why it's so prevalent?
20/20. Mattel was the only one I was uncertain of, but the correct answer was slightly blurrier, due to it probably being an actual logo copy scaled down or up slightly, as opposed to a "freshly-made" duplicate for the purpose of the test.
Toyota was easy enough, as the capital "O" in Helvetica is more oval than round in Arial, and more round than oval in Helvetica.
I'm not a designer, I'm a developer, but I do enjoy typography.
A much more interesting question than "Arial or Helvetica" would be: "Which one looks better?" Then you could ask how well the answer correlated with Helvetica vs Arial.
This question is good for seeing whether people know what they're looking at, but the point of using one font over the other isn't to show you prefer the 'correct' font, but to be invisibly better than other choices in one way or another.
The problem is that there was a lot more effort put into the originals than their knockoffs in Arial. The originals were produced with a designed typeface - and typefaces are tweeked for size. The Arial knockoffs obviously used scaled up versions in several cases. The knockoffs didn't get the same attention to kerning either.
This is a question that's close to my heart. As a developer I've spent inordinate amounts of time getting Helvetica working properly in websites.
I can tell the difference between them, it's obvious when you know what to look for. Is it so much better that it's worth the effort required? Definitely not in my opinion.
I have a special place reserved in Hell for that font.
What I like most about Helvetica is the top of the t is flat rather than sharp and there is less stylizing overall. Arial, for me, breaks the philosophy of stylizing for stylizing sake. Helvetica, IMHO, was already perfect.
This makes me remember the Essay by Adolf Loos' Ornament and Crime (1929) (http://technical-english.wikidot.com/text-1-2). Albeit bordering on racist propaganda contains very valid points on ornamentation being wasteful which I believe was a hallmark of Dieter Rams philosophy, "Good design is as little design as possible" which highly influences Apple's industrial designer Jonathan Ive.
[+] [-] ef4|13 years ago|reply
There are obvious tells in almost all of them -- mostly lowercase "s", "c", etc, in which Helvetica is has perfectly level edges and arial is angled.
The only harder ones are some of the all caps examples like TOYOTA.
[+] [-] rexreed|13 years ago|reply
For uppercase, the tip offs are the following:
* The capital A in Helvetica is narrower (more isoceles and less equilateral)
* The capital G has an extra hatch on the right side (looks like an arrow and not an L)
* The capital R does not have a straight leg in Helvetica
* Conversely, arial chooses a non-straight hatch mark for the Q whereas Helvetica's Q hatch is straight.
This image provides a good overview on the capital (and numeric) differences: http://cdn.ilovetypography.com/img/gqr.gif
In the case of TOYOTA where it seems that kerning might different in two images, the heavier strokes in Helvetica should tip that off.
[+] [-] anonymouz|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reidmain|13 years ago|reply
I couldn't see any difference between Mattel and Toyota.
[+] [-] markokocic|13 years ago|reply
I guess that anyone who knows anything about typography would answer correctly to all questions.
Clue: I went for bolder font. Also, Helvetica is a bit wider in these logos. After that, I also noticed the clue in C.
[+] [-] bdg|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Aardwolf|13 years ago|reply
All the rest I had immediately, on the very first image there was 50% chance I had it right and I did a lucky guess, from then on I knew Helvitica was horizontal, Arial slanted.
[+] [-] 38leinad|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lusr|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kluny|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tshadwell|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wildmXranat|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] martswite|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lelf|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 67726e|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jsilence|13 years ago|reply
Before this test I considered the differences negligible, without really knowing what the differences are. Now I consider Helvetica much more elegant and incisive.
[+] [-] sjwright|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aidos|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jongold|13 years ago|reply
— Terminals at right angles to the stroke. http://c.jon.gd/image/3Q0y2u323j3C . Arial looks particularly sloppy with jaunty terminals. It is possible to have a similar grotesque sans-serif feel with offset terminals (see Univers & Akzidenz Grotesk) but they're a crucial part of what give Helvetica its character. - The uppercase R. Has a really strong leg compared to Arial's half-assed flaky leg.
[+] [-] visarga|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] calinet6|13 years ago|reply
But the important part is that there's a difference in feel and theme that's not really measurable and identifiable in direct comparison.
The subtle difference is far more important than trying to identify the tiny details that don't really matter. And in that sense, this game (while fun and interesting) misses the point.
[+] [-] dsr_|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] visarga|13 years ago|reply
Does this feel different? I can see the slanted Arial terminations but I don't "feel" the different mood.
[+] [-] jinushaun|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonathanjaeger|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snu|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neolefty|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sp332|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neya|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mambodog|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ruswick|13 years ago|reply
This was just something I noticed for the first time while going through.
[+] [-] quarterto|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gotoY|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] navs|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] guessWhy|13 years ago|reply
1. Helvetica has level edges, Arial is angled (as ef4 said). Particularly important were "t", "e" and "a", "S", "G", C".
2a. For capital letters, if there is an "R", the Helvetica one is curved in the bottom right part while Arial uses a straight line.
2b. For a capital "Y", the Arial one has the same length in all directions while the Helvetica one is shorter at the bottom. (Alexx indicated a difference).
2c. The jags/gaps in the capital "M" extend further to the top for Arial. This can be used to figure out MATTEL.
3. Otherwise, the one that looks fatter is Helvetica.
[+] [-] EEGuy|13 years ago|reply
* This test quickly 'clued me in' that a logo should give a "commanding", "authoritative", "brooks no argument" look. Helvetica, yes; Ariel, no: Ariel made some logos look downright self-satirical.
* An email client I use has Ariel as its default font. In that (two-way communication) context, where accidental antagonisms can arise, Ariel seems to "look less antagonistic"
* So this test speaks to me about appropriate fonts for two different contexts, and personal point-of-view.
* Got 20/20, but might not on a 2nd run. I'm only human.
[+] [-] crntaylor|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] J2K|13 years ago|reply
Sorta similar to the 'Objectified' doc that was recommended by HackDesign but I actually liked this one better.
[+] [-] speeder|13 years ago|reply
For "Mattel" my choice ended being random.
[+] [-] jspiros|13 years ago|reply
Toyota was easy enough, as the capital "O" in Helvetica is more oval than round in Arial, and more round than oval in Helvetica.
I'm not a designer, I'm a developer, but I do enjoy typography.
[+] [-] wging|13 years ago|reply
This question is good for seeing whether people know what they're looking at, but the point of using one font over the other isn't to show you prefer the 'correct' font, but to be invisibly better than other choices in one way or another.
[+] [-] brudgers|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asynchronous13|13 years ago|reply
I got 17/20 correct with that method.
[+] [-] aidos|13 years ago|reply
I can tell the difference between them, it's obvious when you know what to look for. Is it so much better that it's worth the effort required? Definitely not in my opinion.
I have a special place reserved in Hell for that font.
[+] [-] Swizec|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SquareWheel|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fotoblur|13 years ago|reply
What I like most about Helvetica is the top of the t is flat rather than sharp and there is less stylizing overall. Arial, for me, breaks the philosophy of stylizing for stylizing sake. Helvetica, IMHO, was already perfect.
This makes me remember the Essay by Adolf Loos' Ornament and Crime (1929) (http://technical-english.wikidot.com/text-1-2). Albeit bordering on racist propaganda contains very valid points on ornamentation being wasteful which I believe was a hallmark of Dieter Rams philosophy, "Good design is as little design as possible" which highly influences Apple's industrial designer Jonathan Ive.