So you think you can tell Arial from Helvetica? • Hacker News Board

Re: So you think you can tell Arial from Helvetica?

#91

Post by platz » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 4:50 PM UTC

etfb wrote: post #20

reidmain wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is almost the exact experience I had. I got 17/20 and the ones I screwed up all had capital letters. I couldn't see any difference between Mattel and Toyota.

The perfectly round "O" was the giveaway for me. Helvetica just feels more "literal" to me, if that makes any sense, with its perfectly horizontal endings on "C" and "S" and "t", so the round "O" seemed more likely. Mattel nearly tripped me up too, but I noticed that Helvetica was bolder throughout than the Arial equivalent, so it wasn't hard.

I think your description of "literalness" relates well to "geometric" typefaces (typefaces constructed on simple geometric shapes).

Re: So you think you can tell Arial from Helvetica?

#92

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 4:58 PM UTC

threedaymonk wrote: post #71

anonymouz wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also Helvetice tends to look sligthly "heavier" (thicker) when put side by side with Arial. That gives away many examples at a glance.

The Helvetica is actually slightly thinner in the Mattel example.

[deleted]

Re: So you think you can tell Arial from Helvetica?

#93

Post by lelf » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 5:02 PM UTC

ef4 wrote: post #4

I really don't consider myself a typography expert or designer, but I found that easy and got a perfect score. 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.

+ compare kerning

Re: So you think you can tell Arial from Helvetica?

#94

Post by dlitz » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 5:05 PM UTC

stevanl wrote: post #54

visarga wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

1) Completely round O = Helvetica 2) The C's. Helvetica = flat endings not slanted 3) Like a perfectly round O, the M's have more of a squarish spacing

Hmm. I see a completely round O in "TOYOTA", but not in "THE NORTH FACE". Is it just me?

Re: So you think you can tell Arial from Helvetica?

#95

Post by js2 » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 5:05 PM UTC

jneal wrote: post #85

etfb wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The perfectly round "O" was the giveaway for me. Helvetica just feels more "literal" to me, if that makes any sense, with its perfectly horizontal endings on "C" and "S" and "t", so the round "O" seemed more likely. Mattel nearly tripped me up too, but I noticed that Helvetica was bolder throughout than the Arial equivalent, so it wasn't hard.

I used the same rational. Whichever font looked bolder, I choose and got it correct. Also, the Staples Arial version didn't have the "registered" mark so I got that one easily.

But in the Mattel example, Helvetica is the thinner font. Instead notice the varying letter width, the M being wider than the A with Helvetica in the Mattel example.

Re: So you think you can tell Arial from Helvetica?

#96

Post by moostapha » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 5:09 PM UTC

Terrible test. I got 19/20 based entirely on knowing what the original logos looked like on a few of them (Agfa and DEC, mostly). I thought I'd fail because I've never paid attention to those fonts.

If it was done with novel text, the results would have been different.

Re: So you think you can tell Arial from Helvetica?

#97

Post by pwthornton » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 5:11 PM UTC

Too bad this test isn't a higer DPI. It's easier to tell the differences, and see the subtleness of Helvetica at higher DPIs. Helvetica is a font designed for print, but it also looks good on HiDPI/Retina displays.

On my Retina MacBook Pro this whole test is a blurry mess. I had to bring it over to my non-Retina display to take it. But the differences between Arial and Helvetica pop a lot more on a better display.

Re: So you think you can tell Arial from Helvetica?

#98

Post by js2 » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 5:12 PM UTC

lelf wrote: post #93

ef4 wrote: post #4

I really don't consider myself a typography expert or designer, but I found that easy and got a perfect score. 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.

+ compare kerning

In the Mattel example they both look kerned about the same to me (the A tucked under the T). Elsewhere in this thread it is pointed out that Helvetica uses varying letter widths and that's the only giveaway I see now in Mattel, though it's somewhat difficult to see due to the kerning. But the M is clearly wider than the A with Helvetica.

Re: So you think you can tell Arial from Helvetica?

#99

Post by js2 » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 5:14 PM UTC

killahpriest wrote: post #61

Aardwolf wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The way to spot MATTEL is to look at the letter widths. Arial tends towards fixed widths, whereas Helvetica's letters have varying widths.

Thanks, this is the key to finally help me spot it.

Re: So you think you can tell Arial from Helvetica?

#100

Post by brudgers » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 5:19 PM UTC

wging wrote: post #82

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.