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.
So you think you can tell Arial from Helvetica?
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Re: So you think you can tell Arial from Helvetica?
#32It's the "r" that's usually the give away. However, I would have to say that the capital "S" is also a giveaway, and the I'd have to say that the letters with Helvetica are somewhat fatter...
Re: So you think you can tell Arial from Helvetica?
#33That was easy. I read this article about a year ago and once you've seen it, you can't unsee it :)
Re: So you think you can tell Arial from Helvetica?
#3420/20 - a few hard ones though. Fun quiz :)
Re: So you think you can tell Arial from Helvetica?
#35I 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.
In the ones where you don't have the flat edges to work from, I found Helvectica is the "bolder" one.
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Re: So you think you can tell Arial from Helvetica?
#36This 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 :)
Re: So you think you can tell Arial from Helvetica?
#3720/20. 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…
> the capital "O" in Helvetica is more oval than round in Arial, and more round than oval in Helvetica.
The Os in the Toyota logo have been modified and made more round, though. This is what "TOYOTA" looks like in plain Helvetica: http://myfonts.us/td-RQ1hNh
The Os in the Arial and Helvetica are practically identical.
Re: So you think you can tell Arial from Helvetica?
#38The bad kerning gives it away on more than one occasion (American Apparel for example).
Re: So you think you can tell Arial from Helvetica?
#39I 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.
Also Helvetice tends to look sligthly "heavier" (thicker) when put side by side with Arial. That gives away many examples at a glance.
Unfortunately that's not always true, since Helvetica comes in many weights. http://sixrevisions.com/infographics/helvetica-font-weights-...
Re: So you think you can tell Arial from Helvetica?
#40You can clearly see the black brush on the almost black background in the SCOTCH logotype :D