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

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

#41

Post by guessWhy » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 2:16 PM UTC

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.

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

#42

Post by klrr » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 2:17 PM UTC

Haha, fun test, got 14 of 20 right!

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

#43

Post by adieulot » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 2:19 PM UTC

I noticed that I can do pretty good just by quickly detecting which one is the most unfamiliar font, as I am and always have been on Windows.

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

#44

Post by mambodog » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 2:20 PM UTC

The MATTEL one was hard, but I just assumed the one with crappy kerning was Arial, and sure enough...

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

#45

Post by kalleboo » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 2:21 PM UTC

I got about 50/50 but got bored and gave up after 16 so I don't know my score. I don't stare at small details on fonts normally like people here do, so I mostly tried to pick which one looked "right".

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

#46

Post by fbomb » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 2:23 PM UTC

I got 17 out of 20. I just picked the ones that looked better to me.

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

#47

Post by J2K » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 2:24 PM UTC

Fun test. Also if anyone's interested in Helvetica or typesetting in general just watched a pretty good documentary recently that got me more interested in the topic: http://www.helveticafilm.com/, also available on netflix: https://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Helvetica/70076125

Sorta similar to the 'Objectified' doc that was recommended by HackDesign but I actually liked this one better.

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

#48

Post by visarga » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 2:25 PM UTC

jongold wrote: post #2

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 le…

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

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

#49

Post by visarga » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 2:30 PM UTC

calinet6 wrote: post #19

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.

I don't feel this subtle difference. Take a look: http://imgur.com/CWJWvZk

Does this feel different? I can see the slanted Arial terminations but I don't "feel" the different mood.

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

#50

Post by Aardwolf » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 2:30 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.

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.