By telling the answer after each one they educated me on the difference between Arial and Helvetica. After a coin-flip guess on the first question I got 19/20 right. Now I know the difference.
Helvetica has a few very easy tells; look at the 'e' and 'c', the 'F' and 'E' and the 'A' and 'Y' in these examples, and you'll get 20/20. Oh, and the 'G' and 'R' ofcourse.
"It was created to be metrically identical to the popular typeface Helvetica, with all character widths identical, so that a document designed in Helvetica could be displayed and printed correctly without having to pay for a Helvetica license."
Got 3/20. I didn't know the characteristics of Arial or Helvetica beforehand. The results show that I can easily tell the two fonts apart, although I don't know which is which.
3 wrong? If so, same here. I also didn't know the characteristics so at the first logo I noted the differences and tried to remember what I noticed about Arial in the past, guessed correctly, and was able to find common letters in most subsequent ones (and learn new letters). I kept messing up the capital A, otherwise I would have gotten only one mistake.
No, not 3 wrong, but only 3 right. I was effectively doing a blinded test. Since I didn't know what are the real differences between the two fonts, all I could do --- as another user has commented --- was to make consistent choices throughout the whole test. Actually I think a blinded test is slightly more meaningful, because the test hypothesis looks simpler.
I didn't notice them (on my phone) until the last few, not excepting that tiny text to be anything important.
I also had no idea of the difference, but got most right by choosing the one that looked "wrong" to me, that one was usually helvetica. Someone above suggested the prevalence of arial makes it look more normal.
Me neither. But there’s still things you could do without looking at specific letters. i was guessing by which looked more stylish or like what an original would look like. Along with obviously looking at if I was right or wrong before.
Did you not at least look at what you got right or wrong for the answer before to improve? Getting 3/20 seems a bit too low.
19/20, fooled by Mattel (and guessed lucky on the other all caps texts). My heuristic was to look at the a, c, e, g, and s, if present in lowercase: are the ends of those characters horizontal (Helvetica) or at an angle (Arial).
18/20, they're fairly easy to tell apart, except for MATTEL and TOYOTA which are quite subtle (and I got wrong precisely because I couldn't remember which is which). Both the capital and lowercase R are a dead giveaway.
TOYOTA was completely impossible to me. I had AGFA wrong because I'd forgotten which had which G. I got lucky on MATTEL. The others are easy once you know that Helvetica loves its horizontal lines.
I scored the same, for the same reason. What I find interesting is that the Helvetica logos are a lot nicer in my opinion even though the difference is subtle. Having things parallel to the baseline improves the look dramatically over the angled bits in Arial.
It's very subtle and more pronounced in the other logos shown, but the horizontal line in the "A" is closer to the baseline in Helvetica than in Arial.
I also got all except Mattel, despite not really using either typeface all that much. Lowercase 't' was also a dead giveaway in a lot of cases. I also noticed that the Helvetica answers seemed to have a slightly heavier weight, which really helped for the all-caps examples.
Ultimately, the Helvetica versions "felt right", and that probably contributed to my lucky guesses. A more challenging test would be to compare samples not associated with well-known brands.
17/20. I've spent some time studying the differences and could just rocket through them without bothering to even look at the 'c's and 't's. The one that gave me the most pause was digital, and that was one of the ones I got wrong. When you separate the letters, Helvetica loses a lot. The other two I got wrong were also done without letter-by-letter examination.
Helvetica just looks more 'solid' sitting there on the page. Not only is the font a bit heavier, but the kerning is also tighter. Arial's curves and lines look like a 15 year old who thinks anime art is cool drew them.
Arial is an awful font that I wish never had been born.
I didn't go reading up on the specific differences between the fonts before taking the test. I did look at the 't', but I didn't remember which was which. I had been relying on the impression the two fonts made on my mind.
18/20. I got thrown off by the kerning in CVS/pharmacy. On Crate&Barrel, I was thrown off by the C. Why does it look different from all the other C's in the Helvetica versions of the logos?
I did hopelessly, then I found out about the differences (which I did not even ever know or notice), I got 100% on a second try. Consider me enlightened about the differences now.
Even HN falls to it's knees in the presence of an internet quiz and the opportunity to show off a score.
Unrelated, you used to see ridiculous amounts of quiz's being shared on Facebook only a few years ago and they seem to have all but disappeared. They where obviously shady in some aspect (maybe some kind of data collection), did something actually happen to them or did people just get bored?
It’s easy to tell if you know what to look for. If there’s an R, r, or t, it’s super obvious. G, S, s, 3, Y, A and a are also pretty noticeable too. If you didn’t score well on this test, go back and look again given what I just told you above and you’ll see what I mean.
The uppercase R is the most obvious one to me, which interestingly is the only one I prefer Arial over Helvetica. I sometimes like to screw with font nerds I know and make the R be Arial and the others Helvetica and see if they notice (they of course notice the R, but don’t always immediately realize the joke).
People are obviously exaggerating. I don’t care much about fonts. But I still wrote to a friend that Arial is ugly and sucks when linking to this. That doesn’t mean I really care all that much. Just a feeling in the moment.
Yeah of course they are. I guess my point is that it isn't helpful. Like, with a just a modicum of self discipline we could go from "the slanted lines are really crap" to "slanted lines in a font are bad because ...", or from "I wish Arial had never been born" to "the introduction of Arial into the mainstream was disastrous for design because ...". At some point, the internet is a cesspool because of us.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 173 ms ] thread['t', 'R', 'a', 's', 'S', 'c', 'C', 'g', 'G'] are the easiest to spot IMHO. You can get most of these with the lowercase c alone
Indeed, although TBH I only noticed at the second to last one!
Just look for the neatest font, with the straightest endings on curved ends e.g. r c g etc
Arial has angled caps, Helvetica are straighter.
"It was created to be metrically identical to the popular typeface Helvetica, with all character widths identical, so that a document designed in Helvetica could be displayed and printed correctly without having to pay for a Helvetica license."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arial
I also had no idea of the difference, but got most right by choosing the one that looked "wrong" to me, that one was usually helvetica. Someone above suggested the prevalence of arial makes it look more normal.
Did you not at least look at what you got right or wrong for the answer before to improve? Getting 3/20 seems a bit too low.
They're fairly easy to differentiate. The curved ends (finials) of e, c, C, r, S, s are generally horizontal in Helvetica and at an angle in Arial.
The tail of the uppercase R and ascender of the lowercase t are the biggest giveaways.
Funny how they are so similar, but Arial is pretty tacky in comparison...
When looking at uppercase I could see such a difference in kerning, Arial just can't get it right.
A = Angled = Arial
H = Horizontal = Helvetica
Some of the capitals (C, S) have that, too.
Similarly, lowercase r ends vertically in Helvetica, slanted in Arial.
Ultimately, the Helvetica versions "felt right", and that probably contributed to my lucky guesses. A more challenging test would be to compare samples not associated with well-known brands.
Helvetica just looks more 'solid' sitting there on the page. Not only is the font a bit heavier, but the kerning is also tighter. Arial's curves and lines look like a 15 year old who thinks anime art is cool drew them.
Arial is an awful font that I wish never had been born.
The lowercase a is a dead giveaway.
To the quiz creator: There's an (R) trademark missing in the imitation "Staples" logo which is a giveaway.
c's and t's are a giveaway, Mattel and Toyota logo are easy to tell if you pay attention to the font weight.
Bravo to the author, the logos were recreated faithfully
(EDIT: Okay, yes, technically 11/20 is slightly better than chance - but really, no.
Cumulative probability P(X >= x) = 0.41 )
At least I'm consistent, but I guess I got them the other way around.
Unrelated, you used to see ridiculous amounts of quiz's being shared on Facebook only a few years ago and they seem to have all but disappeared. They where obviously shady in some aspect (maybe some kind of data collection), did something actually happen to them or did people just get bored?
And perpendicular cuts on all C/c/S/s/e/G/g
Only missed Mattel and Staples.
I guess 5 capital letters wouldn't've been enough for the owners of Helvetica to have made a case
> the stupid slanted end bits on letters like c s and r are also really crap.
> Arial is an awful font that I wish never had been born.
> What the hell were they smoking when they made the t and G?
Like, I wish Hitler had never been born. Arial can stick around, haha.