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Can you tell the difference between Arial and Helvetica?
Since emerging in 1982, Monotype Imaging‘s Arial has received its fair share of criticism, having long been regarded as a significantly uglier stand-in for Helvetica. That Microsoft endorsed Arial as a Helvetica alternative to avoid paying royalties has only made things worse. Yes, professional typographers and type designers can easily tell the two typefaces apart, but as design is further embedded into the mainstream, typography critics are popping up on ever corner.
In response, David Friedman of Ironic Sans has created a quiz that takes authentic, Helvetica-based logos and recreates them with Arial. As Friedman says, “some people would call that blasphemy. I call it a challenge: can you tell which is the original and which is the remake?” It may sound easy, but considering how similar Arial is to Helvetica, many will find the quiz quite challenging. Memorizing a few defining Helvetica characters, like “R” and “Q,” should help.
Take the quiz via the link below and let us know your score in the comments. Good luck/no cheating!
Robert "claims" to have gotten 20/20, whilst I only got 17/20. What can I say? I’m not perfect!
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21 Replies
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19 out of 20, MATTEL was my downfall…walks away with head hung in shame
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19 / 20 Toyota caught me out!!
That’s 2 of us with our heads hung low 🙁
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Makes 3 of us but I got Toyota wrong and I confess Mattel was a guess.
Alan D -
19 / 20
mattel had me too!
Paul
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17/20. ITs the upper case angular letters that confuse me.
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Mattel 19/20
Where’s Jill Score?
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I did get the 20… honest! 😀
The one that had me thinking for a bit was Crate&Barrel
It wasnt that i thought it was Arial, I just thought the capital "C" was too close to full revolution. if you see what i mean? actually thought the C only looked more like Avant-garde. 😕
anyway, all the rest of the letters in it pointed to Helvetica so i went with it to get my 20/20 :tongue:
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Well I’m going to be a party pooper & not even try :lol1: :lol1: I have to confess I am not very good when it comes to recognising any fonts, always amazes me that the same few people generally answer when someone asks for a font id.
Rather than humiliate myself in public I shall just pretend I didn’t see this thread :lol1: :lol1: :lol1: :lol1: :lol1: -
19/20 got MATTEL wrong
I always though SWISS and HELVETICA were the matched / substitute?
(As Helvetica is an archaic name for Switzerland)
(Confederation of the Helveticans).
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16 for me, serves me right for rushing them. 🙄
That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. -
quote Mike Grant:16 for me, serves me right for rushing them. 🙄
That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.That’s mine as well Mike…16 here too, capitals are hard to distinguish.
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Mmmm embarassed, 18, Toyota and Mattel 😳
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Did it on my phone last night and rushed a very poor 12 out of 20.
Much better on the pc 😉
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20 out of 20 – but then you’ve only got my word for it 😕 😳
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8 😳
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20 Ha!
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quote Jamie Wood:20 Ha!
That’s pretty good considering you know nothing about fonts! 😀
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only 18 MATTEL aand TOYOTA
just not so easy with the capitals
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18/20
(Got National and Toyota wrong)
😳
I always look for the slanty bits of Arial but this was tricky.
Love….Jill -
12/20 Couldn’t remember which t and R was arial 😳
Did get Toyota right though (it was a guess)
Steve
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20/20! But worked as typsetter for NatWest for 20 years and Helvetica was their font then, though not now. 🙂
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