Quiz: So you think you can tell Arial from Helvetica?
It seems to be the consensus that Arial is a substandard alternative to Helvetica. But just how bad is it? What if the logos we’re used to seeing in Helvetica were redone in Arial? Would you even notice if the next time you saw the American Airlines logo it was redone in Arial? Here it is in both fonts. At a glance, can you tell which is which?
The top one is Arial. If you know what to look for, it probably jumped right out at you. If not, you may see that they’re different but still not know which is which.
To test your skills, and help you learn to recognize Arial vs Helvetica, I’ve taken 20 Helvetica logos and redone them in Arial. (Blasphemy!) A lot of them are just plain awful in Arial. But a couple of them are actually tough to tell apart.
You’ll get half of them right by just randomly guessing, but if you don’t do much better than that, here are some good resources for you to check out that will teach you the differences between Arial and Helvetica:
Link: How to Spot Arial
Link: Arial and Helvetica overlayed
Link: The Scourge of Arial
Comments
I spotted 19 of the 20 - I was defeated by Mattel.
But then, I have watched Helvetica - The Movie recently, so I’ve been conditioned to spot it! (I recommend the film, by the way.)
Posted by: Steve Jones | September 29, 2009 2:00 PM
19/20 also — beaten by Staples.
PS. your captcha is making me type anti Britain. Xenophobe!
Posted by: Andrew Appleton | September 29, 2009 2:22 PM
20 out of 20! On the tough ones (Mattel, Toyota), the original logos seem to have better kerning, which helped distinguish them. Great quiz!
Posted by: Tim Chambers | September 29, 2009 2:23 PM
I got 18 out of 20 - missed Mattel and Toyota.
I haven’t seen the film, but it’s easy to spot once you know the trick. The ends of the a’s and c’s and e’s being parallel to the horizontal instead of at an angle.
Posted by: Jed Christiansen | September 29, 2009 2:24 PM
20/20. Simple when you know what to look for, with the exceptions of Toyota and Mattel.
Posted by: Cajo | September 29, 2009 2:25 PM
Managed to get 18/20. Mattell and Toyota got me!
Posted by: Jay Owen | September 29, 2009 2:26 PM
Ah, 19 of 20. Mattel beat me too. That’s a tough one, I guess one must look for the slightly squashed M of Arial.
Posted by: Matthew Hale | September 29, 2009 2:26 PM
18/20. Toyota got me. I got an easy one wrong before that because I was in zombie click mode.
Posted by: Jim | September 29, 2009 2:27 PM
Damn. Even knowing to watch out for Toyota, it got me. 19/20.
Posted by: Steve Ivy | September 29, 2009 2:30 PM
20/20! The Mattel and Toyota have subtle tells as to their true identity.
Posted by: Tony Price | September 29, 2009 2:30 PM
Also, knowing this doesn’t hurt: http://www.swiss-miss.com/2009/09/arial-versus-helvetica.html
Posted by: Jay Owen | September 29, 2009 2:30 PM
20/20 quite easy if you know where to look.
Posted by: Marco | September 29, 2009 2:34 PM
19/20, Mattel defeated me too. It’s so subtle in terms of the weight.
All the ones with lower case t’s are easy since the arial has that fruity curve on it.
Great quiz though, it’s fun to see the logos set in Arial.
Posted by: Justin Dickinson | September 29, 2009 2:35 PM
Wow. 20/20. Just got lucky with Mattel and Toyota.
Posted by: Douglas MacKinnon | September 29, 2009 2:39 PM
Hm, 20/20, wasn’t even that difficult.
Posted by: Nobody | September 29, 2009 2:41 PM
19/20. Got Toyota wrong. I so wanted to be better than Gruber, but I made the same mistake.
Posted by: Steven Vandeweghe | September 29, 2009 2:52 PM
18/20. Fell victim to Mattel and Toyota, like so many before me. Fun quiz!
Posted by: Alex Basson | September 29, 2009 2:53 PM
Like most everyone, 19/20 and blew it on Mattel.
Lower case letters are easy because the stems of Helvetica are parallel to the baseline while Arial is at an angle. Also, Helvetica’s weirdly swirly capital R is tough.
Mattel has taught me to look for the ratio of the triangle in the capital A as a distinguishing feature now. Nice job.
Posted by: Aaron H. | September 29, 2009 2:57 PM
19/20. Damn you, Mattel!
Posted by: Jack Auses | September 29, 2009 2:58 PM
18 out of 20. I, too, was defeated by Mattel and Toyota!
Posted by: Ricardo Cordoba | September 29, 2009 3:01 PM
20 out of 20. Mattel was the only one I wasn’t sure of.
Posted by: nat | September 29, 2009 3:09 PM
19/20 - Accursed Mattel.
Posted by: Craig Michael Patrick | September 29, 2009 3:09 PM
20/20 I shoulda been a designer, I guess.
Posted by: Arthur Jennings | September 29, 2009 3:10 PM
Good quiz! I got 18 out of 20 - missing just “digital” and “MATTEL” - and I had a strong feeling, while taking the quiz, that those were the two that might trap me …
Posted by: Greg Williams | September 29, 2009 3:11 PM
19/20 - Damn Toyota
To make uop for anti britain I got yuks detroit for the captcha
Posted by: Mike Caine | September 29, 2009 3:11 PM
20/20
For both Mattel and Toyota, use the A (narrower in Helvetica) and the T (wider in Helvetica).
Posted by: Daveed | September 29, 2009 3:14 PM
19/20
[shaking fist at sky]: Damn you, Mattel!
Posted by: Refidnas | September 29, 2009 3:14 PM
Yeah, Mattel fooled me. This would make a fun CAPTCHA on a forum for graphic designers.
Posted by: Rockwell | September 29, 2009 3:14 PM
I scored 100% but I will admit, Mattel and Toyota were tough for me too.
Posted by: Stewart | September 29, 2009 3:20 PM
20 of 20 - but all the allcaps ones (esp 3M) were guesses.
Posted by: rose | September 29, 2009 3:23 PM
Wow, I feel like a fool. 19/20 — I correctly picked Toyota and Mattel without hesitation, but dithered on BASF. When I look at it now, I don’t know how I missed the slightly-less-than-horizontal lines on the Arial BASF. I think I was too preoccupied with the counters in the Bs.
Posted by: afiler | September 29, 2009 3:25 PM
I got Mattel wrong, but I knew I was taking a guess, so I feel like I’ve established my street cred.
Posted by: Greg | September 29, 2009 3:25 PM
I came up with a great word and then totally forgot to use it in my post. I was going to say that a lot of these had shibboleth glyphs (shibboglyphs?), like R, r, G, and t.
Posted by: afiler | September 29, 2009 3:31 PM
19/20 Missed Mattel as well.
The others, including Toyoya, aren’t too hard if you know what to look for.
Posted by: Ben Cochran | September 29, 2009 3:46 PM
Argh. Got Toyota wrong too. The shame.
Posted by: _nb | September 29, 2009 3:47 PM
19/20. Mattel kicked my ass.
Now let’s see a 3-way quiz between Helvetica, Arial and Akzidenz Grotesk!
Posted by: Philip Karpiak | September 29, 2009 3:55 PM
19/20
Missed Mattel.
Posted by: Noah | September 29, 2009 3:57 PM
What’s with the reverse snobbery about Arial these days?
They took another font and squished it to match the metrics of Helvetica. They didn’t even have the balls to just rip it off completely like many others did.
Yeah, overdramatic designers acting as if Arial burns their eyes is tiring, but a ripoff is a ripoff.
This quiz, which highlights not being able to tell the difference as if it was a good thing for Arial, is entirely backward. Why don’t we celebrate these websites, after all I can hardly tell the difference between them and the original:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/web_design_ripoffs/
Posted by: dave | September 29, 2009 4:06 PM
19/20 - TOYOTA.
My question to all those who said “easy if you know what to look for”: What do you look for in MATTEL an TOYOTA?
I visited “How to spot Arial”, but did not find it. Is it that the “A” runs wider in Helvetica? If so, I had MATTEL right by accident :)
Posted by: Stefan Waidele | September 29, 2009 4:06 PM
19/20. Toyota got me too
Posted by: Gargantuan | September 29, 2009 4:07 PM
I got 18/20 American Apparel and Staples are the ones that stumped me!
Posted by: Laura | September 29, 2009 4:08 PM
19/20…
toyota was right (helvetica has more circular O’s)
mattel I chose wrong (I assumed it’d be the bolder one)
thanks, was fun altogether :)
Posted by: Helmut | September 29, 2009 4:18 PM
17/20 Mattel and twice capital R
I think I’ve learned my lesson on the swirly capital R. As others have said, parallel stems, swirly capital R, capital A in Arial seems a tad to wide (which for a strange reason is not the case in Toyota) and finally the capital O is rounder in Helvetica (this gave me Toyota).
Posted by: El Aura | September 29, 2009 4:26 PM
20/20, only guessed on Mattel, in retrospect I can see the font weight difference even there.
Does this score help me in any way to pick up people in bars???!!!
Posted by: Raoul Duke | September 29, 2009 4:29 PM
20/20. In your face Gruber!
Mattel and Toyota were tricky, I’m claiming my gut got them right but probably just got lucky.
Posted by: James Bebbington | September 29, 2009 4:30 PM
Most of the time, Helvetica is less curly. The ‘e’s and ‘3’s don’t have the tilt on the end of the twirly bits. The capital A is hard to tell properly, but I think Arial is slightly wider. Finally, the Helvetica curly ‘R’s kept fooling me as I had convinced myself that Helvetica was less curly! The ‘G’ also looks nicer in Helvetica.
Posted by: Izzy | September 29, 2009 4:30 PM
16/20. I was excited about that score until I came here and read everyone’s. :(
Posted by: Cat | September 29, 2009 4:32 PM
20/20. I thought most looked pretty similar, but I admit I used “which looks better?” for the ones where I couldn’t find a non-parallel bit to ID the Helvetica… and it worked.
Posted by: Jon the Geek | September 29, 2009 4:35 PM
Is Toyota even using Helvetica? The roundness of the Os isn’t like any Helvetica I’ve seen. Also, see here: http://new.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/forum/case/103306/
Posted by: arktos | September 29, 2009 4:41 PM
19/20 - DAMN YOU KAWASAKI. Also I have to admit the Mattel one nearly got me. I ended up choosing the one which I thought had better kerning. Which really tickles me.
Posted by: Lilian | September 29, 2009 4:41 PM
19/20 damn toyota
Posted by: mike | September 29, 2009 4:46 PM
19/20
Mattel :-(
Posted by: Joe Font | September 29, 2009 4:52 PM
That was great! 19/20 - like many I was fooled by Toyota. A fun break to my day’s monotony.
Posted by: Andy Owen | September 29, 2009 4:59 PM
20/20 and I are smug about that, if not have grammar it
Posted by: diskgrinder | September 29, 2009 4:59 PM
I got 19 out of 20 right. I missed the “Mattel.” All caps, all straight strokes left me clueless.
Posted by: Eric Murphy | September 29, 2009 5:00 PM
perhaps tell people the two words in the capcha should be typed without space. Or should I know that?
Posted by: diskgrinder | September 29, 2009 5:01 PM
Darn it. Toyota got me. The “O” is totally misleading. Should have looked at the “Y.”
Posted by: Ast A. Moore | September 29, 2009 5:04 PM
19/20 Mattel was hard. This little quiz made me realize the beauty of Helvetica and the ugliness of Arial!
The c’s in Scotch and the 3 in 3M look amazingly harsh in Arial!
Posted by: Tiffany | September 29, 2009 5:04 PM
18/20 - Agfa & Mattel. Forgot about the “G” and the lower horizontal line in the “A” in the former. For the latter, the “A” seemed disproportionate to the rest but I think it was an optical illusion due to the framing.
Posted by: dvessel | September 29, 2009 5:05 PM
The TOYOTA wordmark is not Helvetica.
The example set in Arial is stylistically much closer to Helvetica than the original logo — so everyone who got this one “wrong” is actually closer to the truth.
Posted by: Holger Kappenstein | September 29, 2009 5:11 PM
20/20 And I learned two new arial/helvetica flags.
the middle of the M is less optically consistent in arial, and the O’s in helvetica are more geometric.
I’d never be able to tell those two without comparison though. I only guessed based on what looks better.
Posted by: daniel sherson | September 29, 2009 5:13 PM
18/20. Mattel was tricky. And I accidentally clicked the wrong one for Panasonic (Panasonic!). Honestly, ok?
Posted by: Andrew Fox | September 29, 2009 5:17 PM
so, actually Os aren’t more geometric, that’s just toyota cheating.
http://new.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/forum/case/103306/
Posted by: daniel sherson | September 29, 2009 5:20 PM
19/20 … darn you Mattel!!! hehehe
Posted by: meghan feyerabend | September 29, 2009 5:24 PM
18/20 - Mattel and Toyota got me … as so many before. Tricky and fun. Thanx.
Posted by: Ingo | September 29, 2009 5:29 PM
Fucking Mattel.
Posted by: Sam | September 29, 2009 5:31 PM
13/20
When I didn’t even believe I could tell, I picked the one I liked the best. Arial is supposed to be the ugly one, right?
The score would have been even worse if I didn’t get feedback on the previous questions until the quiz was over.
Posted by: Daniel | September 29, 2009 5:32 PM
18/20 but I was in a hurry. Also just saw Helvetica movie, so I often looked for the horizontal and vertical terminators. Dead giveaway.
Posted by: Joseph Francis | September 29, 2009 5:33 PM
20/20
…it’s all about the ‘r’
Posted by: Andy | September 29, 2009 5:40 PM
19/20. I blew it on Target. The R and G caps are very different, but I thought the more curly R was uncharacteristically flamboyant for Helvetica. Why so curly?
Posted by: Mark | September 29, 2009 5:46 PM
got 19/20 correct. Missed Mattel
Posted by: Land du Pont | September 29, 2009 5:48 PM
I too was defeated by mattel.
Posted by: Marc | September 29, 2009 5:49 PM
Got TOYOTA wrong, 19/20 correct. Thanks for the fun quiz.
Posted by: inspirationbit | September 29, 2009 6:01 PM
got screwed by toyota and mattel as well
Posted by: Rocco Poiago | September 29, 2009 6:03 PM
Damn you Mattel!
Posted by: Steve | September 29, 2009 6:06 PM
20/20 Mattel was my only blind pick and Toyota was tricky, others were rather easy.
Posted by: Zoran Nesic | September 29, 2009 6:11 PM
20/20, though I’ll admit Mattel was a guess based on which I thought looked better.
Nb. My capcha is “Special girths”. I giggled.
Posted by: Wafflemeister | September 29, 2009 6:21 PM
Now do shirts:
http://helveticatheshirt.com
Posted by: drtofu | September 29, 2009 6:26 PM
19/20 somehow got Target wrong!
Posted by: bc | September 29, 2009 6:37 PM
20/20! - but I threw a wild guess at Mattel, and had a slightly stronger intuition for Toyota.
Posted by: PerryCollective | September 29, 2009 6:38 PM
19/20
I’m pretty sure the Mattel logo was switched and I chose the right one…
Toyota is pretty easy (rounder “O”.)
The rest is a piece of cake.
Posted by: Demian | September 29, 2009 6:38 PM
15/20. I’m not a graphic designer and I don’t look at fonts all day so I’m happy with my result.
Posted by: laanba | September 29, 2009 6:41 PM
18/20
But you know what, I zipped through quickly, simply identifying the font that looked slightly bolder. I didn’t examine the letter forms at all.
What does that tell us?
Posted by: Chris | September 29, 2009 6:46 PM
After I took it someone pointed out to me the image filenames contain the font name.
Posted by: Pete | September 29, 2009 7:02 PM
17/20 - defeated by some allcaps.
I didn’t realize that Arial was that much uglier until I saw them side by side in design contexts. Wow!
Posted by: AK | September 29, 2009 7:12 PM
I got 14/20, but I’m not a graphic designer, or font designer, so I am not too worked up about it!!!
Posted by: ERin | September 29, 2009 7:14 PM
17/20 The CAPS got me. They’re the hardest to tell apart (for me)…
Posted by: Rednoser | September 29, 2009 7:39 PM
19/20
Toyota is hard…
Posted by: Jules Stoop | September 29, 2009 7:54 PM
19/20, Mattel.
I almost think the Arial Mattel is superior to the Helvetica. (This is the only case in which I think anything of the sort.)
The real giveaway in Mattel, though, and the thing that makes Helvetica eke out the win, is the E. The slightly-shorter middle arm of Arial’s E messes up the negative space between the E and the L. If I were a real designer that would’ve stuck out like a sore thumb.
Posted by: Lanny Heidbreder | September 29, 2009 7:57 PM
So I sucked at this. 11/20. I even missed Target! Good thing I am a project manager and not a designer. But nice post, and great job with the blog, btw. I have you linked off of mine.
Will take the retest and see if I fare any better.
Posted by: Kim Tackett | September 29, 2009 8:10 PM
17/20 with lots of help from the “How to tell Arial and Helvetica Apart” links.
Posted by: Olivia | September 29, 2009 8:42 PM
19 of 20. Mattel ruined my perfect score.
Posted by: Tammy Pruitt | September 29, 2009 8:51 PM
damn you TOYOTA!!!!!
Posted by: adam | September 29, 2009 8:51 PM
20/20 (although Mattel and Toyota were rather tricky).
You might want to look at the typeface used for the various labels on the dashboard of a late-model Honda. The typeface appears to be Helvetica, although the Gs and Rs are taken from Arial.
Posted by: John | September 29, 2009 9:08 PM
Got 20/20! Ultimate helvetica WIN!
Posted by: katiebluebird | September 29, 2009 9:12 PM
19/20, great quiz though.
Posted by: Jeff Milner | September 29, 2009 9:40 PM
20/20, though I mostly guessed with MATTEL. TOYOTA was easy, though, with the more truly circular O’s that Helvetica has.
Posted by: Joseph Spiros | September 29, 2009 10:17 PM
20/20! Mattel was the hardest… I was pretty sure I had it right but I don’t know why — it just looked more elegant. Toyota was easier because of the Os — Helvetica’s are rounder.
Posted by: Julie | September 29, 2009 10:20 PM
I also got 18 out of 20 - missed both Mattel and Toyota.
The lowercase are easy by comparison, unless there is a “R” involved.
Posted by: Chad | September 29, 2009 10:34 PM
Whoa… I thought I was the only one who sweated over Mattel and Toyota.
I want to start a club with all of you people. Seriously, we’re going to have a monthly newsletter with such awesome kerning it’s not even funny.
Anyone who is interested, email larry at houseoflegend dot com and await further instructions. I’m not kidding. I hereby call to order the first meeting of DAMN YOU TOYOTA!
Posted by: Larry Legend | September 29, 2009 10:35 PM
20/20 and very surprised. Another Mattel/Toyota guesser here. I don’t have the experience to derive those two from personal knowledge but just went with what felt subjectivity “right”.
Maybe that’s the mark of a good typeface.
PS: Loved the “keming” reference.
Posted by: Wrinkle_In_Time | September 29, 2009 10:46 PM
19/20… ugh defeated by MATTEL - funny enough I liked the Arial version MUCH better, maybe I just wanted it to be true! Oh and had I studied the “E” and the em width of the A closer - maybe just maybe I would have accepted poor typography and chosen correctly.
Posted by: Jane | September 29, 2009 10:52 PM
18/20 - Mattel and Lufthansa were the two that tripped me up.
Posted by: JP | September 29, 2009 11:36 PM
20/20
Thing is, Arial’s faults still don’t make me like Helvetica any better. I wouldn’t mind if both of them disappeared.
Posted by: Robert Fisher | September 29, 2009 11:38 PM
19/20
Dang, Toyota tripped me up, as well.
Posted by: DomesticGeek | September 29, 2009 11:43 PM
19/20 Damn you Toyota and your non-standard Os!
Posted by: redfood | September 29, 2009 11:57 PM
20/20
Mattel was tricky; I had to guess based on kerning, but it coulda gone either way.
Posted by: Duane | September 30, 2009 12:02 AM
I thought TOYOTA was in Folio, not Helvetica.
Posted by: Cameron | September 30, 2009 12:57 AM
18/20 Mattel here too, but CVS somehow stumbled me.
Posted by: David | September 30, 2009 1:17 AM
Argh - Mattel and Toyota fooled me too.
Posted by: Peter C | September 30, 2009 2:20 AM
20/20!
Thought I would struggle, but found it pretty instinctive.
The one that looked better on first impulse was always the right one.
Posted by: Clawsout | September 30, 2009 2:45 AM
20/20.
mattel was medium difficulty due to a kerning error. toyota was harder but the weight looked wrong. everything else was eeaassyy.
Posted by: Chris | September 30, 2009 3:02 AM
20of20 hell yeah!
Posted by: prostee | September 30, 2009 3:02 AM
“You answered 12 out of 20 questions correctly.”
Looks like i’m the looser in here…. ;-)
Wel, i’m not into types and fonts.
Posted by: Andreas Becker | September 30, 2009 3:03 AM
18/20
I got Mattel and Toyota correct! the one’s that tripped me up were Panasonic and The North Face. Now that I look again i really should have got them correct. oh well.
Posted by: Ed Moore | September 30, 2009 3:36 AM
Got 19 out of 20.
Mattel’s use of Helvetica is imbalanced, the Arial looked better - but you know, the M was too light next to the A - so that should have been the clue.
Posted by: steve mehallo | September 30, 2009 3:53 AM
20/20. I had trouble with Toyota and Mattel but “felt” the right ones :)
Posted by: Kuba Bogaczewicz | September 30, 2009 3:58 AM
20/20. Maybe I should be a designer?
Mattel and Toyota were the only “hard” ones, since they had no giveaways. With Mattel I went with the one that I thought had better kerning and I’ve seen the Toyota wordmark so many times that the correct one instantly jumped out at me, whether it was actually Helvetica or not.
Posted by: mog | September 30, 2009 4:19 AM
19/20, damn you Toyota
Posted by: Florian | September 30, 2009 4:54 AM
20/20, Toyota and Mattel were not immediately obvious but the capital O is more circular in Helvetica, whereas Arial’s O is more oval.
Mattel’s M is the giveaway. The center vertex is disproportionately thick compared to the verticals.
Posted by: Sam | September 30, 2009 5:27 AM
I spotted 19 of the 20 - I was defeated by Toyota
Posted by: trami | September 30, 2009 6:17 AM
great quiz, I got 18/20 (I was wrong about Mattel and Panasonic).
Posted by: sarma | September 30, 2009 6:35 AM
19/20, beaten by Toyota
Posted by: jason | September 30, 2009 6:46 AM
18/20: Bell Atlantic scuppered me before I realised Helvetica has flat t-tops and TOYOTA was just plain difficult…
Posted by: Ben Walker | September 30, 2009 7:14 AM
19/20 Beaten by Matell
Posted by: Sid | September 30, 2009 7:24 AM
Mattel got me good. How do you tell the difference?
Posted by: Martin | September 30, 2009 7:27 AM
15/20 - please don’t tell my friend, Silas.
Posted by: dawlism | September 30, 2009 7:45 AM
20/20 - Yay! I r a deziner now?
Mattel and Toyota almost got me, but the spacing and kerning were even in Helvetica.
Posted by: Lex Ein | September 30, 2009 7:53 AM
19/20 - Toyota got me, but this is probably the only one (imo) that looks better in Arial. I simply do not like how the “O”s are too round so I fell to Arial. Kerning might be better in Helvetica though.
Posted by: coyote | September 30, 2009 8:08 AM
17/20 Mattel & Toyota as many others, and an unforgivable mistake: Post-it. The slashed top of the t… dammit!
Posted by: maria | September 30, 2009 8:09 AM
Ha ha! 20/20 baby!
I must do this for a living or something…
Posted by: Erik Teichmann | September 30, 2009 8:21 AM
17/20 - I actually got Mattel right, which gives me some comfort in my B+ final score. I spaced on a few of the “easier” ones like Staples and Target.
I’m not really a designer, and I didn’t read the links before taking the test, but seeing the two fonts side by side (top by bottom?) really brings out the differences. And confirms what I already knew in my Gruber-influenced heart to be true.
Arial is a hideous, hideous font.
Posted by: Timothy Sanford Hankins | September 30, 2009 8:23 AM
18/20, Toyota got me as well… damn, I also missed AA.
Posted by: Joe Yeung | September 30, 2009 8:34 AM
19/20
Great quiz, Easy to spot the lower case ‘t’, struggled with ‘TOYOTA’ though!
Thanks!
Posted by: Amit | September 30, 2009 8:45 AM
20/20 — Toyota was relatively easier than Mattel. I’m going to send this link to my daughter, who is majoring in graphics design (and has her own strong opinions on fonta).
Posted by: lar3ry | September 30, 2009 8:59 AM
18/20 - MATTEL and TOYOTA got me too:) - Very Cool Quiz!
Posted by: squareart | September 30, 2009 9:07 AM
18/20
just based on the assumption that helvetica should look better…
Posted by: a. | September 30, 2009 9:09 AM
18/20
Posted by: Teicu | September 30, 2009 10:37 AM
Mattel and Staples got me - maybe it was the subliminal Swissiness of the white on red? hehe.
Posted by: Chantal | September 30, 2009 10:37 AM
13/20 — I guess I’m not a font dork.
CAPTCHA: “James placates” — I thought “James” meant “usurper”.
Posted by: pj | September 30, 2009 10:38 AM
Wow, I did better than I expected, 20/20. I don’t know, I just picked the better-looking one. I guess I’m in the Helvetica camp here. The 3M one was truly horrid in Arial. The kerning seemed quite different, too.
And I like Rockwell’s idea of using this as a Captcha for graphic designers :)
Posted by: milky | September 30, 2009 10:42 AM
19/20.
I never flew AA, so that’s my excuse.
Posted by: Simon Jary | September 30, 2009 11:04 AM
18/20
You might want to scramble the image names, though. They’re a dead giveaway.
Posted by: Dave | September 30, 2009 11:04 AM
Mattel got me. 19/20.
Posted by: passim | September 30, 2009 11:05 AM
19/20. The Mattel logo threw me off. (It really helped to look at the second link “Overlayed”.) Was that cheating?
(My Captcha was “prentice flunkeys”. I think that applies…)
Posted by: ScoBo | September 30, 2009 11:06 AM
17/20 - quite proud of myself since I design for sheer entertainment right now.
Posted by: J | September 30, 2009 11:08 AM
20/20! My college roommate was a graphic design major, so I’ve had plenty of exposure to the differences between the two. And yes, I think Helvetica does look significantly better.
Posted by: Kelsey | September 30, 2009 11:43 AM
17/20 – got BASF, NATIONAL and STAPLES wrong!!!!! Good luck to you all.
Posted by: Jimbob | September 30, 2009 11:48 AM
19/20 - Feeling extra shame because I DRIVE a Toyota. (Though I’m letting myself off the hook a little because the nameplate fell off years ago.)
Posted by: czelticgirl | September 30, 2009 11:52 AM
20/20. Staples was the only one I was unsure about, until I noticed the Arial one didn’t have the registered trademark.
Posted by: JohnK | September 30, 2009 11:56 AM
19/20 - Damn you Mattel, Great quiz though!
Posted by: B | September 30, 2009 12:09 PM
I got 19 out of 20…I got into a bit of a rhythm until I got stumped at Mattel…I should of went with my instinct…Helvetica was more geometric than Arial so if all the characters look as though they could fit in an em square…it’s Helvetica…there are also some more telltale signs but that’s a secret…
Posted by: Kwesi Amuti | September 30, 2009 12:12 PM
19/20 - MATTEL was tricky.
Posted by: cadeux | September 30, 2009 12:32 PM
14/20 Pay attention to the C’s and the S’s that was what usually got me through them.
Posted by: G | September 30, 2009 1:36 PM
19 out of 20. I got lucky on mattel, and missed toyota. dang capital letters…
Posted by: Matt Pickell | September 30, 2009 1:37 PM
Holy crap that was hard…
I got 17 of 20
These three tripped me up.
•Bell Atlantic
•TARGET
•TOYOTA
Great exercise!
Posted by: Jim | September 30, 2009 1:44 PM
20 out of 20
I have been conditioned to hate Arial… and Verdana. For some reason, the web seems to think they are all the same! For shame web… for shame.
Posted by: Alan McD | September 30, 2009 1:46 PM
Ugh if it wasn’t for Toyota I would have gotten a perfect score 19/20. Mattel was a tough one too, but like someone else mentioned, the one with better kerning is Helvetica. Lots of distinction on the edges/anatomy of the strokes in the ‘S’, ‘C’, ‘T’, ‘a’, and other letters in a lot of the comparisons, so that helped in recognizing Helvetica over Arial.
Posted by: David | September 30, 2009 1:49 PM
19/20, cursed Mattel. Junctions, terminals, and counterspaces are the giveaways.
Posted by: Dogg | September 30, 2009 1:58 PM
19/20 - also got beaten by Mattel. Toyota wasn’t that hard cause of the lengthy ‘o’ in the Arial version :)
Posted by: klickreflex | September 30, 2009 2:07 PM
19/20 … Toyota was a tough one!
Posted by: Michael A | September 30, 2009 2:07 PM
19/20: due to TOYOTA
Posted by: arm | September 30, 2009 2:11 PM
20/20…mattel was tricky though. Phew!
Posted by: sri | September 30, 2009 2:15 PM
20/20; that was kind of easy actually.
You should make a “Helvetica vs. Univers” quiz :D
Posted by: djyuki | September 30, 2009 2:23 PM
Even easier when you look at the source code!
Posted by: Charley | September 30, 2009 2:29 PM
19/20
Toyota got me :D
Posted by: Nemanja Nenadic | September 30, 2009 2:31 PM
Yay! 20 out of 20! Was struggling with the Toyota one but in the end the real Helvetica just looked neater.
Posted by: Bendy | September 30, 2009 2:43 PM
19/20 Mattel got me only because I second guessed myself :(
Posted by: Sherlyn | September 30, 2009 2:50 PM
19/20. Darn Mattel. It was a lot easier than I thought. My biggest tell is the lower case “a” and upper case “G” and “R”. And the fact that Helvetica is just better looking. :P
I also like how only people who got perfect or -1 posted their scores.
Posted by: Jordan Smith | September 30, 2009 2:58 PM
19/20 Mattel got me :(
Posted by: Octave | September 30, 2009 3:04 PM
Mattel for me too. I go by the Rs, the general roundness and the fat little i! I’d never have been able to do so well if I hadn’t looked at http://www.swiss-miss.com/2009/09/arial-versus-helvetica.html …
Posted by: Chella | September 30, 2009 3:13 PM
20/20! Mattel was a bit of a guess, just picked the one that wasn’t ugly as hell. The Rs and Ts are always a dead give away. The Os made Toyota an easy get
Posted by: 403 Drew | September 30, 2009 3:17 PM
19/20, Mattel got me.
It seems that most people got fooled with this one.
Posted by: Ezra | September 30, 2009 3:19 PM
20/20, i agree with Cajo,it`s easy when you know what to look for
Posted by: lucy | September 30, 2009 3:32 PM
16/20 Not bad, I guess, given that before coming here I knew they were different but not *how* they were different. As some have said before, the horizonal endings on e, c and a few others are a dead giveaway, once you notice them.
Posted by: R | September 30, 2009 3:41 PM
20/20. Yup, Mattel was tricky—but test was easy at last, even for cartoonists: Arial is a scream.
Posted by: BECK | September 30, 2009 3:42 PM
19/20. Am I the only one who got American Airlines wrong? boo…
Posted by: Tim | September 30, 2009 3:46 PM
19/20. Undone by Mattel. The lowercase letters are much easier to tell apart. Look for horizontal (rather than slightly diagonal) ends on the letters c, s, and e. The top of the lowercase t is also horizontal in Helvetica, diagonal in Arial.
Posted by: Tom | September 30, 2009 3:56 PM
Great quiz! 18/20 - I was defeated by the italic, and white-on-color on one other one probably the first all-caps logo (I have already blocked it out).
The ends of S and C are parallel in Helvetica, not so in Arial. O and e are rounder in Helvetica, the x-height is a bit taller, and the crosspiecs in the A is lower in Helvetica. Arial overall is a bit more condensed than Helvetica
It’s harder to distinguish white type on a colored background (at least for these old eyes). Also putting the logo on an angle helps to confuse my brain.
Now I’m going to post this link in a few more places, so batten down your server!
Posted by: Wendy | September 30, 2009 3:56 PM
20/20.. felt a bit guess-y on the mattel logo, could’ve gone either way. cute quiz!
Posted by: Daniel P | September 30, 2009 3:58 PM
I’m another 19/20 Mattel mistake.
Posted by: David Eisner | September 30, 2009 5:37 PM
19/20. mattel.
Posted by: clarice | September 30, 2009 5:40 PM
19/20 Mattel got me too… all caps and on a slant was a little harder.
Posted by: bzsaw | September 30, 2009 5:47 PM
That blasted Mattel ruined my perfect score. 19/20
Posted by: Ryan | September 30, 2009 6:18 PM
13/20, going by “what logo looks right to me?” versus “which is helvetica?”
Posted by: mary | September 30, 2009 6:26 PM
18/20, DAMN YOU MATTEL!!!, and the other one was a mistake I made, slightly dyslexic, lol
Posted by: Marcelo Almaguer | September 30, 2009 6:42 PM
19/20. Beaten by American Airlines.
Posted by: Dana | September 30, 2009 6:50 PM
20/20 sort of easy
Posted by: MK | September 30, 2009 6:55 PM
I got 19/20. Mattel beat me too! I’m a nerd.
Posted by: Melissa | September 30, 2009 7:43 PM
19/20. Missed TOYOTA.
Posted by: wombat | September 30, 2009 8:03 PM
19/20. There’s that darn Mattel again!
Posted by: Holly | September 30, 2009 8:04 PM
18/20….with 25 years as a designer!!!!
Posted by: Jesus Gaytan | September 30, 2009 9:32 PM
19/20, tripped up by Mattel here too. I went back and compared again, & it was still hard when I had huge Ms open in TextEdit in both faces. Should’ve used the Ts & As, they were much easier.
And sure, Arial might be a dirty ripoff, but sometimes it’s better: case in point, the Scotch logo. I know I’ve just destroyed any possibility of many Arial-hating Helvetica whores ever listening to anything I say, but it’s true. Sometimes Ariel looks better.
Posted by: George Trethewey | September 30, 2009 9:37 PM
Staples was easy, the fake was missing the ® in it, might want to fix that.
Posted by: Thomas | September 30, 2009 10:58 PM
You answered 1 out of 20 questions correctly.
i’m a font guy! tho i haven’t worked with fonts in a couple decades, i have 1300 on my computer, but twitter sent me right to the quiz so i didn’t get a refresher about the differences between helvetica and ariel first. after getting the first 4 wrong, i tried to get them all wrong, and even the one i got right was an accident. fun, thanx!
Posted by: DyNama | October 1, 2009 12:36 AM
Yep, Mattel got me too… @_@
Posted by: Charlie | October 1, 2009 1:24 AM
19/20
Mattel got me too…
Posted by: Dominic | October 1, 2009 1:29 AM
Mattel got me too. But also Toyota. Should have payed more attention to the roundness of the O.
Posted by: Elena | October 1, 2009 1:47 AM
Got 15 out of 20 but I got Mattel right :D
Posted by: Spuchi | October 1, 2009 3:50 AM
19/20. Defeated by MATTEL
Posted by: Bjorn | October 1, 2009 4:16 AM
20 out of 20. But TOYOTA and MATTEL were really not the obvious (I decided just with stomach, so more luck I guess). Great quiz!!
Posted by: Sev | October 1, 2009 4:21 AM
19/20, I fell on Mattel! Allcaps logos are more tricky, but anyway great quiz, make more of these :D
Posted by: Simone Scarduzio | October 1, 2009 5:23 AM
20/20 :) look at the filenames of the images when you don’t know for sure :)
Posted by: de_yannick | October 1, 2009 5:43 AM
I scored 19 of the 20 - I couldn’t differentiate Mattel.
First time I realized Helvitca is so smooth when compared to Arial.
Posted by: Vivek Lakhanpal | October 1, 2009 6:13 AM
Damn you Mattel! 19 out of 20.. good fun quiz!
Posted by: Kyleigh | October 1, 2009 6:13 AM
20/20 :) Mattel was hard, the kerning helped…
being a car freak, Toyota was easy
Posted by: G3R | October 1, 2009 6:19 AM
I spotted 19 of the 20 - I was defeated by National…but I blame that on being distracted by having a sip of coffee ;-)
Posted by: tlal2 | October 1, 2009 6:28 AM
Yikes! 19/20 … Mattel got me, too.
Posted by: Marius | October 1, 2009 6:34 AM
18/20 _ Not bad, I think…
Liked the Challenge! :D
Posted by: Sara Gerardo | October 1, 2009 7:20 AM
great idea guys.
just mattel proved me wrong.
but hey, just 5 characters, upper case, straight strokes…
Posted by: Kai | October 1, 2009 7:46 AM
18 of 20. mattel and toyota.
Posted by: Mark Schuster | October 1, 2009 8:07 AM
20/20
:P
Posted by: dave | October 1, 2009 9:00 AM
20/20 :)
and you forgot (R) in 17th logo ;)
Posted by: Petr | October 1, 2009 9:09 AM
19/20 Staples got me.
Posted by: Ben Weeks | October 1, 2009 10:04 AM
18/20
Mattel and The North Face got me.
North Face it was stupidity, I confess.
But Mattel… damn!
Posted by: Bruno | October 1, 2009 10:13 AM
Got 19/20 - Toyota got me! I’ll get you next time, Helvetica…
Posted by: Anonymous | October 1, 2009 10:21 AM
19/20, curse you mattel!!
Posted by: TonyP | October 1, 2009 11:02 AM
20/20 …. to be honest mattel and toyota were more of a guess …going with the gut which one seemed right vs any visual cues from the letters.
Great quiz!
Passing it along to see how my design friends do …
cheers scott
Posted by: scott Brooks | October 1, 2009 11:09 AM
19 out of 20. I too fell victim to MATTEL.
Posted by: Glenn Fuchs | October 1, 2009 11:10 AM
19/20 with Mattel. That one is Hard.
But there’s also another difficult one: The “National” Logo is not a pure Helvetica, look at the a’s and o’s.
cheers, daniel
Posted by: Daniel | October 1, 2009 11:11 AM
19/20… almost a clean sheet… rushed on toyota, and it got me
Posted by: Kyle Gudsell | October 1, 2009 11:16 AM
19/20…beated by Mattel and hurriness…anyway HELVETICA FOREVER
Posted by: Paolo | October 1, 2009 11:22 AM
18/20
Yeah, seems they are quite different.
Posted by: d | October 1, 2009 11:58 AM
19/20. Mattel :)
Posted by: Martin Doubravsky | October 1, 2009 12:30 PM
19/20 - Mattel was the hardest!
Posted by: Kevin | October 1, 2009 12:33 PM
20/20! Yay!
Posted by: Mary Beth Webster | October 1, 2009 12:34 PM
19 of 20. Mattel beat me too.
But really nice quiz :)
Posted by: Manuel | October 1, 2009 12:42 PM
Got 18 out of 20, sometimes hard to tell …
Posted by: Peer Dicken | October 1, 2009 12:52 PM
19/20
Fell on Mattel.
This was cool.
Posted by: Marcy Gordon | October 1, 2009 12:59 PM
19 out of 20. Exactly the same as afiler - got Mattel and Toyota right but it was BASF that caught me out. Looking back at it, that was kind of stupid!
For those having problems with Staples - look at the tagline and then suddenly obvious. :)
BTW my captcha “Sheree $10”, she’s a bargain clearly! :P
Posted by: Teleutete | October 1, 2009 1:00 PM
Would be interesting to see how Mac users do versus Windows users.
Posted by: teleute | October 1, 2009 1:05 PM
19/20 Toyota beat me! but no bad I Think ñ_ñ
Posted by: Arkaitse | October 1, 2009 1:11 PM
I spotted 19/20. I missed the first one - AGFA. I got stumped by the G. But after the first one, the rest were very easy to spot. The letters I was looking at were the lower case e, t, a, s, c. For the upper case, I was looking at the thickness and roundness of some of the curve.
Posted by: Reshma Mehta | October 1, 2009 1:23 PM
Like most I screwed up on Mattel and Toyota. The O’s in Toyota should’ve given it away. The Mattel was REALLY hard to spot though.
Posted by: Marshall Jones | October 1, 2009 1:38 PM
19/20 - Mattel was tough :p
Posted by: Juhi | October 1, 2009 1:59 PM
Took me 4 times to get perfect score. Mattel was hard
Posted by: Bruce | October 1, 2009 2:05 PM
tough one. lower case or upper case both are really identical with very tiny differences. test enjoyed. my score is 14 out of 20!!
Posted by: umd | October 1, 2009 2:13 PM
toyota Os got me
Posted by: Eva | October 1, 2009 2:39 PM
yay 20/20! (I would have been mortified with anything less!) Mattel and Toyota were tricky, but still noticeable
Posted by: lee costic | October 1, 2009 2:53 PM
Add me to the 19/20-defeated-by-Mattel list. The M got me. Argh.
Posted by: Susan Daigle-Leach | October 1, 2009 2:59 PM
As a lot of others I made mistakes with Mattel and TOYOTA.
Posted by: Niek de Bruijn | October 1, 2009 3:07 PM
I’m no font geek, but I figured out some details quickly enough to get 17/20. The all-caps ones were tougher!
Posted by: Andrea | October 1, 2009 3:18 PM
18/20 TOYOTA and Mattel got me…
Posted by: NIkolas | October 1, 2009 3:30 PM
Why do Toyota and Mattel get everybody? 18..
Posted by: Salman | October 1, 2009 3:36 PM
Toyota and Mattel got me to. 18/20. Helvetica does not have true circular O’s.
Posted by: Scott | October 1, 2009 3:51 PM
20/20, I’m pleased to say. The A shape helps with Mattel and Toyota, it is more elegant in Helvetica, with the crosspiece appearing ever so slightly lower and the width at bottom appearing to be less. My totally uneducated opinion.
Posted by: Mary V. | October 1, 2009 4:34 PM
Hey, no fair. Toyota’s logo isn’t true helvetica. the O’s are rounder and the Y and A are heavier. Your judging Arial vs. some other crappy typeface.
Posted by: Chris W. | October 1, 2009 4:49 PM
19/20 I lost on Toyota
Posted by: Jobi | October 1, 2009 5:22 PM
20/20. Mattel & Toyota were tough ones. The “E” on Mattel and “O”s in Toyota, as well as the overall difference in weight made me spot the difference.
Posted by: Anonymous | October 1, 2009 6:06 PM
fun test! i got 11 out of 20.
Posted by: Jorge | October 1, 2009 6:40 PM
19/20 aint so bad…
Posted by: Jaymie Jones | October 1, 2009 7:33 PM
19/20.
I am sure that I was sleeping when I was looking at BASF.
Posted by: Adhip Gupta | October 1, 2009 8:28 PM
19/20…Toyota got by me. I remember Helvetica with a mixture of fondness and exasperation. In Graphic Design school back in the early 80s, my typography teacher had us drawing lower-case Helvetica a’s over and over and over till I swear I could do them in my sleep. Beautifully designed typeface, though.
Posted by: Patti | October 1, 2009 9:44 PM
I’m not sure all of the original logos use Helvetica. The National logo doesn’t have the correct tails on the letter ‘a’. The tail of the ‘a’ should end on the perpendicular for normal weights while on the horizontal for bold and black weights which seems to be the opposite for the National logo.
BTW, I think you should have included the Microsoft logo which is done in Helvetica: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvetica
Posted by: Warren | October 1, 2009 10:40 PM
18/20 Staples and Toyota got me!
Posted by: Allison | October 1, 2009 11:18 PM
MATTEL got me…all caps is very tricky. The other one that got me was Kawasaki, though, and in retrospect I’m embarrassed. The capital K in Arial is one of the ugliest glyphs I’ve ever seen, and I should have spotted it immediately.
Posted by: Mike J | October 1, 2009 11:19 PM
19/20 Like many others, MATTEL defeated me. I hang my head in shame.
Posted by: Dave | October 1, 2009 11:46 PM
Toyota and North Face beat me. Sadly I own a Toyota and therefore should be a little more acquainted with the logo. Loved the quiz!
Posted by: Amber | October 1, 2009 11:50 PM
I got 19/20. I will say that in the word TOYOTA, that the character that represent the letter O is neither Helvetica nor Arial. neither are that round, no matter if you select bold or black.
Helvetica was Designed in 1957 by Max Miedinger and is based on Akzidenz Grotesk (1896), and classified as a Grotesque or Transitional san serif face. Originally called Neue Haas Grotesque, in 1960 it was revised and renamed Helvetica (used by Adobe, Agfa and Linotype) - Helvetica is Latin for Switzerland “Swiss” - which was used as its name by BitStream.
Arial Designed in 1982 by Robin Nicholas and Patricia Saunders for Monotype (not Microsoft), it’s classified as Neo Grotesque, was originally called Sonoran San Serif, and was designed for IBM’s bitmap font laser printers. It was first supplied with Windows 3.1 (1992) and was one of the core fonts in all subsequent versions of Windows until Vista, when to all intents and purposes, it was replaced with Calibri.
Posted by: Michael Jahn | October 2, 2009 12:58 AM
19 out of 20, was fooled by Mattel.
From what I understand Helvetica is such a consistent and solid style, that is why it is so wildly used. It only makes sense to choose the one that has straighter edges, not weird angles. I do agree that it is hard to tell with caps.
Posted by: Jesska | October 2, 2009 1:46 AM
19/20… with Target being my trip up, probably because it was the only one where I thought the Helvetica one looked bad and unlike the brand I know (Aus) where with the rest I actually looked for typographic clues (like I was supposed too)
Posted by: Bec Matheson | October 2, 2009 1:48 AM
20/20 Easy stuff. 8)
Fun quiz, though!
Posted by: Nix | October 2, 2009 3:28 AM
I got all except MATEL, which was tough. Just look at the lower case ‘e’ ‘a’ and ‘s’
Posted by: Fred | October 2, 2009 7:46 AM
I took the test with some trepidation, as I have a reputation to uphold. Thankfully, I got 20/20 - but I had to sweat over Mattel a bit.
One logo I would have liked to see in the test is Microsoft’s. The irony of it suits the site perfectly, I think.
Posted by: Mats Sjöblom | October 2, 2009 7:46 AM
19/20 - Beat by MATTEL, got lucky on TOYOTA.
Posted by: Eli | October 2, 2009 8:45 AM
Curses Mattel! Curses!
I really like Akzidenz Grotesk. Although you almost have to hauc a loogey to pronounce it right.
Posted by: Jeffrey Harrington | October 2, 2009 10:30 AM
19/20. Mattel. Helvetica is denser in many examples here. I think that the more closed ‘c’s etc. is hurts it a little in low-res body text.
Posted by: C W | October 2, 2009 11:29 AM
16/20
Missed, American Airlines, Target, POst IT (don’t know how i missed that one!) and Mattel.
that was fun!
Posted by: foo | October 2, 2009 12:01 PM
19/20 i was wrong in MATTEL too! but finaly i got the difference.
i´m proud because i´m not an expert.
Posted by: carolina | October 2, 2009 12:43 PM
18/20
American Apparel and Toyota got me! =/
Toyota was a hard one!
Posted by: Victor Soares | October 2, 2009 2:13 PM
20/20 Woohoo!
I thought Mattell was going to kill me, as I didn’t have a definite answer, just had to go with my gut.
It’s a fun quiz. But darnit, makes me wish I had good old helvatica on my computer font list.
Posted by: Melba | October 2, 2009 3:45 PM
I got 17 out of 20, but early on is where I faltered. Just wasn’t paying attention! Pretty good though!
Posted by: Vern A | October 2, 2009 5:45 PM
19 out of 20 mattel got me too
Posted by: juice | October 2, 2009 6:17 PM
15/20… So, not bad. Interessting test.
Posted by: Krls | October 2, 2009 6:19 PM
19/20 - MATTEL beat me. Thanks for this interesting piece, remembers me of how much I like Helvetica
Posted by: Marcel | October 2, 2009 6:53 PM
19/20 - MATTEL beat me. Thanks for this interesting piece, remembers me of how much I like Helvetica
Posted by: Marcel | October 2, 2009 6:54 PM
19/20 Mattel beat me! Grrr..heh oh well.
Posted by: Anonymous | October 2, 2009 7:02 PM
I got 15/20. I had a lot of trouble with the capital letters. If there was a t or a G, I was on it.
Posted by: Lindsay | October 2, 2009 7:13 PM
I got 20 out of 20. Of course they drilled into me every characteristic of Helvetica in typography, and I think I’ve seen the movie Helvetica in every Graphic Design class I’ve taken since it came out (headache). Mattel was a stumper, but look at the difference between the M’s and E’s, that gives it away.
Posted by: Gretch V | October 2, 2009 8:28 PM
20/20! Toyota was tricky, but in the end I just knew.
Posted by: Frijona | October 2, 2009 11:14 PM
Stupid Crate and Barrel. I would have had a 20/20 if I had only gotten that one right! I honestly don’t even know what happened…but that’s how it goes sometimes, I guess :)
Posted by: Jenna Peterson | October 3, 2009 12:52 AM
18/20 got me with Mattel and Toyota… D’oh! ^-^ thanx for the fun!
Posted by: taotsu | October 3, 2009 1:59 AM
20/20! Thanks to Gruber’s DaringFireball link to swiss-miss “a nifty little graphic showing the difference between Arial and Helvetica” [http://www.swiss-miss.com/2009/09/arial-versus-helvetica.html]
Posted by: Stefaan | October 3, 2009 3:51 AM
19/20 Dam you Toyota!
Posted by: AKA | October 3, 2009 4:00 AM
Great quiz. I scored 20/20.
Posted by: jeff | October 3, 2009 4:34 AM
20/20
Pretty easy (the big and small ‘r’s being dead giveaways) Mattel was hard.
Posted by: Miguel del Rosario | October 3, 2009 6:10 AM
Toyota! I guess Mattel was a lucky guess since i work in accounts! I do read about design quite a bit though.
Posted by: James | October 3, 2009 8:04 AM
20/20. I would have been really depressed otherwise.
Posted by: Trent Farmer | October 3, 2009 9:23 AM
20/20. So Glad!
Posted by: Trent Farmer | October 3, 2009 9:24 AM
The Digital logo isn’t actually Helvetica in the first place. The letters were drawn in 1957, the same year Helvetica was first released. If you look closely, the counters of the a and g have a flattened edge that you don’t find in Helvetica.
I created the PostScript rendering of the logo at Digital. If you want to know much more: http://nedbatchelder.com/blog/200712/ancient_history_the_digital_logo.html
Posted by: Ned Batchelder | October 3, 2009 12:02 PM
‘Mattel’ was tough… 19/20
Posted by: Martin | October 3, 2009 12:37 PM
I scored a 19/20, with TOYOTA throwing me off. Boo!
Great test. I always love a good Helvetica x Arial game.
Posted by: Charles Adler | October 3, 2009 12:51 PM
15/20. I am not a graphic designer but spend my life harassing them as a web product manager.
Always thought I preferred Helvetica, but here are 3 logos here that I think actually look superior in Arial. Interesting.
Posted by: Elizabeth | October 3, 2009 2:24 PM
19/20 Crushed by Mattel. All the others were easy to spot.
Posted by: Clair | October 3, 2009 3:33 PM
19/20
I can’t believe I didn’t see the difference between the O’s in toyota.
Posted by: Paul Cooley | October 3, 2009 4:29 PM
19/20: Killed by Toyota
Posted by: esskay | October 3, 2009 5:49 PM
19 out of 20 — I missed Mattel. Changed my answer at the last minute, but nonetheless, I chose Arial for Mattel.
Posted by: kate | October 3, 2009 8:14 PM
19/20
I flubbed on Mattel!
Posted by: kate | October 3, 2009 8:16 PM
Defeated by Mattel as well. 19 out of 20.
Posted by: ninja | October 3, 2009 8:35 PM
19/20 for me. MATTEL forced me to guess.
Posted by: Thomasina | October 4, 2009 2:19 AM
16/20! Great idea for a quiz! :)
Posted by: Johnny Walker | October 4, 2009 8:53 AM
I had 18/20.. defeated by American Airlines and 3M
Posted by: ★ | October 4, 2009 10:44 AM
19/20…. I went for the higher bar on MATTEL.
Posted by: Pam WIlcken | October 4, 2009 11:04 AM
Brilliant idea. Devils in the detail. I got 19/20 - Mattel seems to be the tricky one - no giveaway Cs or Gs.
Posted by: Alastair Duncan | October 4, 2009 4:28 PM
I got 18 out of 20. American Airlines and TOYOTA beat me. The “M” is tricky! I will try again and loose my rookie-status ;-)
gS
Posted by: Gerard Salomons | October 4, 2009 4:52 PM
19/20 - Another victim of the Mattel trap.
Posted by: Richard Smith | October 4, 2009 5:01 PM
Not a font nerd. Very clear when there were letters like a, c, e. Toyota and Mattel were hard, I don’t know how to tell the fonts apart in those cases where there aren’t horizontal vs. angled letter ends.
Would still have to guess for both of those.
Posted by: Tim Harding | October 4, 2009 6:27 PM
18/20 mattel y toyota
Posted by: Franz | October 4, 2009 6:31 PM
18/20. Mattel and Toyota got me too. Did better than I thought I might. Great quiz!
Posted by: Pam | October 4, 2009 9:00 PM
Boo…fell victim to Mattel & Toyota like the other 18/20-ers!
Posted by: Jonalynne | October 4, 2009 11:03 PM
got 19/20.. wasn’t beaten by anything.. just a victim of trial and error with the first one (AGFA), because I didn’t really know the difference between Helvetica and Arial.. noticed the difference in AGFA, then applied my knowledge of the difference to guess the other 19.. would have got 20/20 if I guessed right the first time.. :D
Posted by: a13x | October 4, 2009 11:29 PM
Good quiz! All of them were easy once you know how to recognize ‘r’, ‘s’, ‘t’ and ‘3’. But TOYOTA and MATTEL beat me. 18/20!
Posted by: Anurag | October 5, 2009 4:52 AM
19/20 Damn you Mattel!
I think the trick is, pick the logo that clearly looks better.
Posted by: Nate | October 5, 2009 4:59 AM
16/20…Found it difficult to recognise some of the upper case letters! :P great quiz though!
Posted by: Heinrich | October 5, 2009 5:51 AM
Wow, scroll scroll, this one is popular!
Seems like everyone fell at Mattel and Toyota. Me too. Great fun. a
Posted by: Andy Bundock | October 5, 2009 7:35 AM
That was great!
I actually preferred the CVS pharmacy logo and Staples logo in Arial
Posted by: thegraphical | October 5, 2009 10:02 AM
Toyota, what can I say aaaaah 19 out of 20!
Posted by: Anonymous | October 5, 2009 10:17 AM
20 out of 20. Fun, but mostly easy.
Posted by: Bart | October 5, 2009 11:13 AM
19/20. Deceived by Mattel, which actually helped with Toyota. Of course, I’m not a pro, so yay me!
Posted by: Philip Barron | October 5, 2009 1:12 PM
14/20
Posted by: FalconX | October 5, 2009 3:44 PM
15 isn’t bad!
Posted by: June Stonehouse | October 5, 2009 11:04 PM
I got 18 out of 20 - was stumped by Mattel (like, it seems, everyone else) and BASF which now that I look at it was a rookie mistake as the terminations on the capital S of the Arial one are not completely horizontal. Doh!
Here’s a more difficult one:
http://www.iliveonyourvisits.com/helvetica/
Posted by: Richard Welsh | October 6, 2009 8:52 AM
19/20… Mattel got me. I’m such a cliché.
Bonus hint: you left the ® off of the duped Staples logo, which is a bit of a tell… that was easy, indeed.
Posted by: Darcy | October 6, 2009 11:10 AM
100% score, but the MATTEL was difficult>
Posted by: Peter de Leur | October 6, 2009 12:52 PM
Mattel was difficult.
Posted by: Peter de Leur | October 6, 2009 12:56 PM
20/20 for me… very simple
Posted by: peter from miami | October 6, 2009 3:15 PM
Arrrrgghhhhhh!!
MATTEL. I went back and forth and then forgot what my instinct was…which i think was correct.
oh well.
19/20 for me.
Posted by: BJMRamage | October 6, 2009 3:57 PM
I scored 19/20 with CVS being the incorrect one. It stumped me because I worked as a Senior Designer at CVS corporate in the brand area and the CVS logo is actually Swiss. :)
Posted by: Paula Abilheira | October 6, 2009 4:41 PM
I scored 19/20 with CVS being the incorrect one. It stumped me because I worked as a Senior Designer at CVS corporate in the brand area and the CVS logo is actually Swiss. :)
Posted by: Paula Abilheira | October 6, 2009 4:42 PM
18/20, Ditto Toyota and Mattel. Guess I’m in good company on those!
Posted by: Alice Bernat | October 6, 2009 4:50 PM
I ended up with 17 out of 20, I’m rather proud of myself. I left the printing game more than 30 years ago. Back then some companies were still using hot metal casting for type! A very good test for old eyes.
I too lost out on MATTEL, difficult to spot that one.
Posted by: James Kelly | October 6, 2009 5:53 PM
19/20. I was stymied by Toyota. In retrospect, the Helvetica “O” has a much more pleasing roundness to its shape, which should have been the tip-off. Great quiz!
Posted by: Syd Salmon | October 6, 2009 9:38 PM
19/20. I got cocky at #17 — Staples of all things. I’m glad to see I wasn’t alone in that but, looking back on it, feel that “easy” taunting me.
Posted by: Ed T | October 6, 2009 10:47 PM
19/20
Failed on The North Face logos. Though i do blame the subpixeling on my monitor for that. ;)
Posted by: Sam T | October 7, 2009 9:43 AM
Looks like I’m in majority…MATTEL & TOYOTA. Great quiz!
Posted by: Babs | October 7, 2009 10:23 AM
19/20
Mattel is impossible :/
Posted by: Jeroen Bensch | October 7, 2009 12:58 PM
seeing all of you above, I don’t feel so bad about missing Mattel now, but it doesn’t completely ease the pain…
Posted by: Noah Keating | October 7, 2009 1:32 PM
i got 18/20…. those uppercase logos got me!
Posted by: Jen Rodriguez | October 7, 2009 3:18 PM
15 out of 20
Posted by: Cindi Rogers | October 7, 2009 9:24 PM
I got 18/20 - I have to learn the signs for the All Caps logos - Mattel got me.
Posted by: heyDarren | October 8, 2009 1:57 AM
18 out of 20, Mattel and Toyota got me like the majority. I’m not a Helvetica fan, but it’s this quiz show how balanced it is… Great quiz! Now do one with the Akzidenz and the Helvetica :-)
Posted by: DaanZ | October 8, 2009 2:31 AM
Grrr, Toyota… 19/20
Posted by: Randy | October 8, 2009 6:03 AM
20/20, great pop quiz.
Posted by: Jamie | October 8, 2009 11:59 AM
18/20. I spent too many years in print media. But then again, before PostScript was turned unreadable, I used to edit these files to alter spacing and fix autonumbering bugs. I’m too much an engineer.
Posted by: JimF | October 8, 2009 1:51 PM
I got 18 of 20. Missed Mattel and Staples. As others said, all caps logo is difficult.
Posted by: ysn0706 | October 8, 2009 2:04 PM
I got 9/10 fail was on MATTEL, thats hard. But the trick is the horizontals on s and e and the serif on the G, once you know that you cant fail
Posted by: Sam Hodge | October 8, 2009 9:25 PM
19/20 - That Mattel logo was a tricky one… Capital Es, As and Ts are particularly hard to tell apart, but I should have recognized the M’s thickness.
Maybe next time :)
Great post!
Posted by: Eduardo Moura | October 9, 2009 3:40 AM
20/20 - they are like unidenticle twins to me.
Posted by: Malcolm Gilbertson | October 9, 2009 9:34 AM
19/20. Mattel got me.
Also, I wasn’t going to post this, but then I saw my name in the recaptcha-thingy.
Posted by: WilliamG | October 9, 2009 9:58 AM
Not a designer, but got 17 out of 20. Mattel, Digital and Toyota are the ones that stumped me.
Posted by: Shoshannah Forbes | October 9, 2009 2:12 PM
19/20
MATTEL got me. The M is really the only clue and I chose poorly. The rest were a snap.
Posted by: grubedoo | October 9, 2009 6:22 PM
Just a suggestion: you might want to change the image filenames to something like image_1.gif instead of mattel_arial.gif and mattel_helvetica.gif.
it’s kind of a dead giveaway. I got 9 of 20 not cheating btw.
Posted by: D. Greene | October 9, 2009 7:23 PM
19/20
MATTEL got me as well.
Posted by: Mark Seymour | October 9, 2009 10:41 PM
18 out of 20, but it should have been 19 - grabbed thew wrong G in AGFA but realized my mistake later with Target. Still, no excuse for getting Toyota wrong…but I got Mattel right, at least.
So generally pretty good - I’m pleased with myself for a hung-over saturday morning…
Posted by: Jim Trascapoulos | October 10, 2009 5:37 AM
19 out of 20
Stumped by Mattel too … guess its not that a great logo if you can switcher-roo the font! lol
Posted by: Ian Reid | October 10, 2009 12:45 PM
DAMMIT! 19/20. The Toyota logo got me! I shoulda known better though looking back. Ah well.
Posted by: Calvin Williams | October 10, 2009 2:20 PM
18/20. Damn Toyota & Mattel! The cap M and O are tricky. But at least now I learned the difference.
Posted by: Billen Teferi | October 10, 2009 6:26 PM
19/20! wow i was near to get it all good :). Well now i really know the difference but it’s not always easy to know :p
Posted by: Christine Simard | October 10, 2009 9:34 PM
17/20, Mattel, Toyota and Staples made my score a loss.
Posted by: Lars Dahlin | October 11, 2009 5:43 AM
19/20 —this was super entertaining. MATTEL was the X!!
Posted by: Jessica | October 11, 2009 4:46 PM
19/20, another Mattel victim :( Was tricked by the heavier weight
Posted by: Jon Zafra | October 11, 2009 10:01 PM
19/20. I mostly decided on the terminals of the “e” and the “S.” Mattel had neither so I went for the beefier one. Damn.
Posted by: цarьchitect | October 12, 2009 1:19 AM
I got a lot of them correct simply by choosing the ones I didn’t prefer. Which means I am in the minority by preferring Arial.
Posted by: libco | October 12, 2009 3:38 AM
Una buena prueba, me falló AMERICAN APPAREL tal vez falta de atencion
Posted by: enhernan | October 12, 2009 9:23 AM
Una buena prueba, me falló AMERICAN APPAREL tal vez falta de atencion
Posted by: enhernan | October 12, 2009 9:24 AM
18 of 20. American Apparel and Staples.
Posted by: SARAH | October 12, 2009 11:18 AM
19 out of 20. I am ashamed I was tripped up by Mattel. Other than that…next quiz this was CAKE!
Posted by: Santos Vega | October 12, 2009 12:21 PM
MATTEL failed me because i tried to not think longer than 2 seconds. There should be a timer – anybody can do 100% with lots of time to compare.
Posted by: erik spiekermann | October 12, 2009 12:23 PM
Missed Mattel. Still not sure of the difference there…
Posted by: Bryan Hoffman | October 12, 2009 1:58 PM
19/20 I didn’t catch my mistake with the lowercase ‘c’ in Panasonic until I had already clicked ‘submit’
Posted by: Nicholas | October 12, 2009 6:05 PM
Mattel got me too…
Posted by: Iain | October 13, 2009 12:42 AM
it’s not that hard
Posted by: May Lee | October 13, 2009 2:01 AM
20 out of 20 - the Toyota one is a toughy - but they were a client for 2 1/2 years at a company I was at :)
(so bit of inside knowledge)
Mattel was good as well I went on the fatter top of the vertical strokes as being the impostor!
Very good though
Posted by: Paul K | October 13, 2009 3:31 AM
Got 18 out of 20. Not bad!
Posted by: Emi | October 13, 2009 8:25 AM
20/20. For Mattel, compare the A and E crossbars between the two demonstrations. Also, note the M. For TOYOTA, Helvetica is more optically consistent at heavier weights.
Posted by: Wonka | October 13, 2009 4:38 PM
19 out of 20 - yep the ol’ Mattel got me! The subtle changes in the M got me!!!!
Great quiz!
Posted by: becks | October 13, 2009 10:55 PM
19/20. I can’t believe i screwed up on… Toyota! The pressure got too hard at the end :-). Cool quiz.
Posted by: Andreas Lindberg | October 15, 2009 3:36 AM
19/20 defeated by Mattel!
Posted by: Andrew | October 15, 2009 3:27 PM
Lovely. Easy. 20/20. Just look at the lower-case “a”, “s” and “t”. Dead give aways. The strokes always end up with a flat, horizontal edge. On the Caps, harder, look for better, more geometric shapes. Arial’s upper-case “G” is simply a joke.
Posted by: PixelRes | October 16, 2009 11:11 AM
19/20 Toyota got me…:)
Posted by: demog | October 16, 2009 12:48 PM
15/20 with no experience. I just picked the one that looked nicer. Does that mean I have discerning taste? ^_^
Posted by: Chad | October 16, 2009 2:54 PM
20/20 .. I wasn’t sure of mattel, but Toyota’s O is very distinctive of Helvetica.
Posted by: Ahmad | October 16, 2009 2:56 PM
19/20, problems with mattel and Toyota.
Posted by: Baban | October 16, 2009 6:35 PM
Like so many others, blasted Mattel got me. First time I’ve been ashamed to get 19/20.
Posted by: skocko | October 17, 2009 7:54 AM
19/20 - learnt by initial mistake with agfa. Toyota and mattel are all about the A
Posted by: Tomas | October 17, 2009 8:43 AM
As a graphic designer I thought I’d nail this, capital letter fonts are harder to distinguish than I thought! Must get back to my Linotype resources and get some revision in…
Posted by: Matthew Price | October 18, 2009 11:02 AM
18/20 - So Fun! And it was Mattel and Toyota that got me as well.
Posted by: Pete | October 18, 2009 11:33 PM
19/20
I simply looked to see which one was BETTER>>>>
Sure enough, Helvetica didn’t let me down!
MATTEL got me too….
Posted by: julie sadler | October 19, 2009 9:28 AM
17/20
Posted by: Vincent | October 19, 2009 3:42 PM
19/20: Mattel
Terrific quiz! I really appreciate the time it must have taken to recreate the logo with Arial [shudder].
Posted by: ehowes | October 20, 2009 8:46 PM
20/20 Wooooo!!!
Posted by: Maldonado | October 21, 2009 10:52 AM
20/20 n_n
easy
watch for the a’s c’s s’s and e’s
Posted by: bobvetica | October 21, 2009 11:02 AM
19/20 not to bad
Posted by: Mario | October 23, 2009 2:02 PM
18/20, but I biffed Kawasaki on purpose just to see what would happen if I got one wrong. But dang that Mattel!
Posted by: jm | October 23, 2009 6:44 PM
17/20 - Basf/Crate&Barrel/Mattel!!!!!!!!!!! Great Quiz
Posted by: Simon | October 24, 2009 7:21 AM
20/20
Toyota was very difficult.
Posted by: Juan Carlos Campos | October 24, 2009 5:50 PM
20/20,
Staples logo in Arial is missing something important (;
Posted by: James Sterling | October 24, 2009 8:30 PM
19/20,
Toyota was easy enough, but I got stumped by Mattel, as did quite a few.
Posted by: John Russell | October 24, 2009 9:15 PM
All these comments and not one person has mentioned how ridiculous we all are for taking this quiz?!?! Ummm, 19/20 btw…
Posted by: Matt | October 24, 2009 10:33 PM
You can easily spot the t-r-a-c-e-s of Helvetica whenever one of these glyphs appears.
By the way, I think the non-Helvetica Kawasaki logo must have been a hybrid, because its lowercase a’s are not from Arial.
Posted by: Martin | October 25, 2009 12:19 PM
Damn Toyota got me - 19/20. Great quiz!!
Posted by: Mic | October 26, 2009 3:13 AM
Cool Quiz, did just two mistakes in American Airlines and Staples …
Regards
Eric
Posted by: Eric | October 26, 2009 5:43 AM
20/20,
Toyota and Mattel were hard but, for me, were a matter of looking for what looked “right”. For instance, the centre of the “E” in MATTEL is slightly above centre. And the proportion of the “A” in both is better in Helvetica.
Posted by: Mark | October 26, 2009 5:50 AM
19 out of 20, that Mattel one was tough,
it got me too. Good quiz though !
Posted by: ZandtK | October 26, 2009 9:38 AM
19/20—defeated by Mattel.
Posted by: JanO | October 26, 2009 11:19 AM
19/20 — defeated by Mattel.
Posted by: Kristians Sics | October 26, 2009 5:58 PM
Chuck Bigelow I feel as if I failed you. Typography & Page Design for three hours a day, two days a week with a viewing of “Helvetica - The Movie” and I still missed 2! 18/20 - Mattel & Toyota got me.
Posted by: SC | October 26, 2009 9:44 PM
20/20 Woo! the A’s and R’s are dead giveaways to the different typefaces.
Posted by: ashley george | October 27, 2009 1:05 AM
18/20
The lowercase t’s are definitely dead giveaways!
Posted by: Deddy | October 27, 2009 2:56 AM
Beaten by Mattel, but 19/20, the horizontal cutoffs give Helvetica away.
Posted by: Alan M Sherwood | October 27, 2009 5:34 AM
19/20, the first one threw me off and immediately after all that I learned about Helvetica came back and I aced the rest. Helvetica is always aligned and always organized in such a way that every letter, caps or lower, will flow perfectly into the next…and to do that requires perfect symmetrical cut-offs at the ends of figures.
The “G” and “R” almost threw me off. Here’s where Helvetica shows that it’s got strong foundtions. There’s extra character stuff, but it’s image is stronger with that of the baseline than Arial.
Posted by: Heather | October 27, 2009 10:24 AM
20/20 I feel like a nerd…
Posted by: Victor Zuniga | October 27, 2009 4:30 PM
20/20 I feel like a nerd…
Posted by: Victor Zuniga | October 27, 2009 4:32 PM
19/20 American Airlines was my mistake. After that, I spotted huge differences in ‘e’, ‘c’, ‘s’… it was easy when I learned what to look for.
Posted by: vostojin | October 28, 2009 6:56 AM
Wow, I don’t know how I got sucked into taking this quiz. Don’t know much about typography.
But I got 20/20!
Fun quiz, thanks. (I don’t own Helvetica — do you have a downloadable prize???)
Posted by: Joanne | October 28, 2009 11:35 AM
19/20 - Mattel got me…
Posted by: Pencil Pocket | October 29, 2009 7:29 AM
20/20 Yesss
Very Happy with myself, even if i did cheat by looking at the Helvetica letter form on the top bar on my mac tehe :P
Posted by: Andrew Jackson | October 29, 2009 7:30 AM
19/20…fucking TOYOTA :D
Posted by: Julian Gruber | October 29, 2009 2:30 PM
20/20 :)
the Os in arial toyota are less round and does the squeezy thing at the bottom
also in mattel the A is less squared and more skinny
Posted by: nerrrrd | October 29, 2009 2:34 PM
19/20
yup… Toyota and their cheating O’s caught me out :/
Posted by: Stef | October 29, 2009 4:49 PM
fuck you mattel and toyota!
18/20
Posted by: [sCYTHe] | October 29, 2009 6:26 PM
18/20
alas, Toyota and Mattel…
Posted by: Anne | October 29, 2009 7:09 PM
19/20 mattel gave me a hit…
Posted by: ole | October 29, 2009 7:37 PM
18/20 - Mattel, and I seem to be the only person who made a meal of it with The North Face. I talked myself into believing Helvetica had a straight leg on the R. Great quiz, nice work!
Posted by: Dan Pacey | October 31, 2009 4:04 AM
i was ok with mattel - but I got hooked on TOYOTA and BASF - the caps are much harder for me. And like Dan - I didn’t realize the Helvetica R had that curve in it.
Fun quiz!
Posted by: Vicki Rulli | October 31, 2009 11:28 AM
I just scored a perfect 20/20. I had to analyze the differences in the article before, but the was a great exercise for me because i can now identify arial vs helvetica type faces a little better than before.
Posted by: Josh K | October 31, 2009 6:52 PM
19/20. Mattel was the hard one for me.
Posted by: numen | November 1, 2009 9:04 AM
18/20
I was hooked by North face and Toyota. It makes a 90% accuracy, not bad at all, isn’t?
Posted by: Alex Schlechetr | November 1, 2009 7:33 PM
19/20 Mattel…
Posted by: Coert De Dcker | November 2, 2009 11:41 AM
16/20… but what the hell is up the the “R” in target? that’s what threw me off.
Posted by: Mica Semrick | November 2, 2009 11:29 PM
19/20…TOYOTA!
Posted by: Craig | November 3, 2009 2:01 PM
15/20 - fuck
Posted by: cleyton | November 3, 2009 2:08 PM
17 of 20. Mattel is INSANE!
Posted by: Schneider | November 3, 2009 3:09 PM
20/20 Mattel was a total guess
Posted by: Peter Nies | November 3, 2009 6:29 PM
I got 17/20. I learned about design by reading Architectural Digest. I love design AND Helvetica but my real love is math. Not too shabby.
Posted by: MathGirl | November 4, 2009 3:58 AM
20/20 aww yeah, nearly stumped by Toyota, capitals are considerably harder than lower case. :)
Posted by: Lewis Nelson | November 5, 2009 7:58 AM
The all-caps were the hardest to tell apart except for the Gs.
Posted by: richard holmes | November 5, 2009 9:13 PM
18/20
Posted by: richard holmes | November 5, 2009 9:14 PM
18/20, and i’m proud of it, nerdos!
Posted by: Anonymous | November 6, 2009 12:43 PM
20/20 Toyota was the most difficult for me. Mattel was tough too. What that one came down to for me was that the original had better kerning. The Ariel recreation wasn’t kerned as well. Lot’s of the letters are giveaways as everyone has mentioned. Just want to add that the Cap P is also a giveaway. The curve of the counterspace isn’t visually balanced with the outer curve.
Posted by: jason | November 6, 2009 1:16 PM
18/20 MATTEL & TOYOTA!!!
Posted by: sim | November 10, 2009 9:23 AM
MATTEL got me. darn.
Posted by: Paul Cain | November 10, 2009 12:02 PM
20/20
I’m an old lover of Helvetica.
Posted by: anna | November 11, 2009 7:14 AM
18 out of 20. That was fun!
Posted by: Matthew Ryan Sharp | November 11, 2009 2:45 PM
19/20. Darn you Staples!
So much fun! Cool test.
Posted by: Tom | November 11, 2009 8:44 PM
19/20, stupid Mattel. That was a fun quiz!
Posted by: Kris | November 12, 2009 9:42 AM
19/20, Mattel got me too!
Posted by: sita silva | November 14, 2009 9:06 AM
18/20. Mattel and Toyota were so identical
Posted by: john hell | November 17, 2009 1:40 AM
18/20 Mettel and Toyota, like most of you…:)
Posted by: Monika | November 17, 2009 11:51 AM
18/20 Staples and Toyota!
Posted by: Ruediger | November 17, 2009 4:29 PM
18/20
Agfa, it was first and I hesitated about “G”…and Toyota like everybody! :/
Posted by: charlotte | November 19, 2009 2:57 PM
19/20 Mattel got me too!
Posted by: Aias Cienfuegos | November 20, 2009 1:19 AM
16 out of 20…I got defeated on all the ones with all caps with no R.
This is amazing though, we have an ongoing inside joke in my multimedia… the reverence we give that font is unreal, lol.
The common t is a really good give away too, besides the common r and a.
Posted by: rush | November 21, 2009 4:42 PM
Woohoo! 19/20. Dang Mattel got me good.
Posted by: Kristina | November 21, 2009 5:04 PM
I only got 14/20, but I got correct the ones which most didn’t…
Am I the only one who recognized the obvious Pink Floyd “Wish You Were Here” reference?! C’mon, guys!
Lots of fun.
Posted by: Nikk | November 23, 2009 5:07 PM
20/20.. MATTEL the hardest.. far far away… but not impossible
Posted by: Jua | November 25, 2009 11:54 AM
like many of the others. I got stumped on MATTEL and Toyota. I think its the Capital A that threw me off.
Posted by: Robert Miller | November 26, 2009 6:22 AM
Haha! GREAT BLOG!!! It’s not easy, but good indicaters are the small a and s and the big R;-) Made a lot of fun
Posted by: Shirtex | November 29, 2009 6:16 PM
18/20
Haha! GREAT BLOG!!! It’s not easy, but good indicaters are the small a and s and the big R;-) Made a lot of fun
Posted by: Shirtex | November 29, 2009 6:18 PM
19/20 Toyota got me.
Posted by: Jason | December 3, 2009 1:57 PM
15/20
brilliant blog!
Posted by: Hannes | December 4, 2009 9:25 AM
20 of 20! Love Helvetica! =)
Posted by: Leo Bragança | December 6, 2009 7:41 AM
MATTEL KILL ME,,,
Nice quiz
Posted by: Bagus Anggara W | December 7, 2009 4:30 AM
American Airlines and Kawasaki were my killers. It’s funny I found Toyota and Mattel to be ones that jumped right out at me! Funny how different things are noticed by different people.
I do love Helvetica. I noticed the big R’s are different, and the small t’s between them. Yes I am a font geek. No I am not ashamed!!! Awesome quiz. A lot of fun!
Posted by: Jocelyn Wright | December 8, 2009 7:19 AM
MATTEL is the hard one, certainly, for me. Arial’s capital Os are squared off, whereas Helvetica’s are rounded; and pretty much all the other letters have squared off ends in Helvetica and angled in Arial.
Posted by: octopod | December 10, 2009 4:21 PM
18 out of 20
MATTEL & Bell Atlantic
Posted by: Webber | December 11, 2009 2:40 AM
Nice and useful quiz. I’ll propose it to my (typo)students ;^)
Posted by: Fabrizio M. Rossi | December 11, 2009 9:11 AM
I’m not a designer and have not read any help notes. I got 17/20 (got mixed up with one, so it should have been 18) but got both Toyota and Mattel. I used the cap A to distinguish.
Posted by: Candleflower | December 12, 2009 10:33 AM
Got 19 out of 20. The Mattel-logo stumped me (like many others here).
Posted by: Jens Tenhaeff | December 13, 2009 2:58 PM
19/20 Mattel; Grrrr
Posted by: TomK | December 13, 2009 3:10 PM
18 right, Mattel and Toyota wrong - just like many here.
Posted by: Veit | December 13, 2009 6:32 PM
18/20 also got Mattel and Toyota wrong,
what a shame
Posted by: louk | December 17, 2009 7:35 AM
20/20 its easy helvetica is more beautiful ;)
Posted by: Oscar | December 17, 2009 9:01 AM
18/20 and that for a project manager… huhu
Posted by: Stefan | December 18, 2009 6:02 AM
I got 19/20. Missed Mattel. Great quiz! And it affirmed why I HATE Arial. Thanks!
Posted by: Julie | December 19, 2009 7:38 PM
20 for 20!
Posted by: Mick | December 21, 2009 1:15 PM
Got 19/20, missed also Mattel :(
Posted by: Sascha | December 24, 2009 6:47 AM
Got 17 out of 20. Viva la Helvetica!
Posted by: Mjr tom | December 25, 2009 9:13 AM
missed in the north face … because the R … great blog !!!
Posted by: yuri | December 29, 2009 4:04 PM
18/20, shame on me. Helvetica was born and I began loving type and typography. It became the typeface of our school publication and still is. Hermann, Munich/Germany
Posted by: Hermann Aszmoneit | December 30, 2009 4:23 PM
Awesome! 19/20 - Defeated by Mattel.
Posted by: Karthik Abhiram | December 31, 2009 11:20 AM
What an exhausting quiz. Who in the hell can actually tell these apart without being a complete neurotic freak about it?
Posted by: Crazzles | January 4, 2010 5:24 PM
20/20. Got Mattel because I saw during the earlier questions that all the Helveticas were just the slightest bit bolder than the Arials. Got Toyota because I picked the one with the rounder Os, but I think I just got lucky on that one.
Posted by: Graham | January 6, 2010 5:25 PM
Toyota :( 19/20
Posted by: Yury | January 6, 2010 5:58 PM
19/20 . Toyota was the problem, and to be honest, Mattel was a guess. Other 18 were fairly easy. In isolation (without the two side by side) I can’t see how Mattel and Toyota could be anything but guesses. Interesting side note: 31 years ago I wrote software on one of the first computerized photo typesetting programs. I used to live and breath this stuff. The computerized typesetting was a very welcome advance from hot metal (that’s what it was called, because it involved molten lead).
Posted by: Philip | January 9, 2010 11:49 PM
19/20
defeated by Mattel!
Great quiz guys, keep up the good work.
Posted by: Antonio e Concettina | January 11, 2010 4:36 PM
I laugh at you Arial. 20/20
Posted by: Andy | January 12, 2010 5:48 PM
There is just no way you can tell between the two MATTEL logos. They are SOOOO alike. I just got that one incorrect. 19/20 for me!
Posted by: Zain Ally | January 16, 2010 5:45 PM
Can anybody explain my what is different in MATTEL logos? Rest are pretty easy. :) Good quiz. Now I understand fully what is a difference beetwen this two fonts. Definietly i like Helvetica more :)
Posted by: witek | January 17, 2010 3:00 PM
mattel also got me! 19 / 20
Posted by: Maria | January 21, 2010 2:58 AM
19/20. Pesky Toyota.
Ain’t it funny how some of the logos just ‘feel’ better in Helvetica?
Posted by: CrocodileJock | January 21, 2010 4:38 AM
I got 19/20…
Damn you, Toyota!
Posted by: Joey | January 21, 2010 7:26 AM
19/20. Mattel.
Posted by: Mike | January 21, 2010 10:20 AM
First time 11/20 then 20/20, the second time got the characteristic S,A,3 and in for toyota the “o” are more “round”
Posted by: pycior | January 21, 2010 4:28 PM
18/20
Mattell and Toyota defeated me!!!! Very pleased otherwise. Arial is such a horrible typeface.
Posted by: Michael B | January 22, 2010 8:35 AM
19/20 Mattel got me too! Sneaky. Sneaky. Sneaky.
Posted by: Brock G | January 22, 2010 1:56 PM
20/20. Love Helvetica!
Posted by: qing liu | January 23, 2010 11:59 PM
Going just for aesthetics, and answering quite spontaneously I scored 14 out of 20. Not being a designer myself, I’m OK with it.
Posted by: Marco De Luca | January 24, 2010 6:35 AM
Sir,you test has a bug.
when i was confused by one question,
i can right click one of the picture,view the property if it,and the name of the picture betrayed the answer~~~
^_^
Posted by: cdinten | January 27, 2010 4:26 AM
20/20 - But Toyota… it`s not easy!
Posted by: Victor Esteves | January 30, 2010 12:09 AM
20/20 :P Toyota and Mattel were the most difficult ones to spot
Posted by: salil p | January 31, 2010 2:40 AM
19/20
Grillé sur American Airline…
Posted by: Mathieu | January 31, 2010 10:49 AM
I got 18/20. I did wrong at MATTEL and TOYOTA!
Posted by: Matt G | February 1, 2010 1:44 PM
I think it’s just a font name, isn’t it?
Posted by: tjeerd | February 1, 2010 4:56 PM
20/20: Thanks for the exercise! It confirmed my belief that knockoffs just don’t cut it.
Posted by: Joel Neely | February 5, 2010 6:29 AM
19/ 20 scheiß mattel xD
Posted by: mac_the_million | February 10, 2010 5:07 AM
18/20 knowing nothing about either font.
Treat it as a machine learning problem and learn from your mistakes and the observable clues.
Posted by: Leth | February 10, 2010 7:56 AM
19/20
Mattel was really difficult…
But in some cases I thought (shame on me!), the Arial looks better.
Posted by: maculis | February 15, 2010 4:27 AM
Easy enough once you know what to look for, though I got caught by the same two as everyone else. But… the two fonts are indistinquishable in my version of Word (2003). Did MS do away with Helvetica in all but name? Anyone know?
Posted by: dave_t | February 16, 2010 3:13 PM
19/20. (Toyota!)I think maybe the helvetica A’s are less wide then the arial…?
Posted by: Shari B | February 20, 2010 5:53 AM
Got Mattel, but TOYOTA GOT ME !!!
Posted by: Mido Taha | February 22, 2010 8:51 AM
19/20. Guessed on Mattel, but stumped on Toyota. It seems to me that the weights in Arial are not as consistent as they are in Helvetica. The only differences in the Mattel logos are the weights, but it doesn’t seem that Arial is lighter across the board. I also hate Arial’s more open for no good reason capital C.
Posted by: Edward Urgent | February 22, 2010 7:15 PM
19/20. Guessed on Mattel, but stumped on Toyota. It seems to me that the weights in Arial are not as consistent as they are in Helvetica. The only differences in the Mattel logos are the weights, but it doesn’t seem that Arial is lighter across the board. I also hate Arial’s more open for no good reason capital C.
Posted by: Edward Urgent | February 22, 2010 7:16 PM
20/20!
So proud! So f… proud!
So, what do I win?
Posted by: Pawel | February 23, 2010 5:40 AM
20/20 Toyota and Mattel was dificult to identify. Congratulations for the text, it is very interesting.
Posted by: Alexandre Furst | February 23, 2010 10:11 PM
19/20.
Pfft, MATTEL! D:
Posted by: Sabrina | February 27, 2010 1:58 AM
19/20 - the cursive ‘National’ tricked me.
Toyota was easy: Just spot the ‘o’s - Helvetica ones look much more constructed. This is also a good example that despite Arial has nicer single characters they look significantly less fine tuned for working together when beeing combined to a whole text.
Posted by: T$ | February 28, 2010 8:18 PM
18/20. Failed with Basf and the damned Mattel.
Posted by: Monica | March 2, 2010 5:12 PM
god dam mattel, 19 out of 20!
Posted by: Howard Taylor | March 9, 2010 10:28 AM
19/20… failed with Toyotaaa… :P
Posted by: Maru Briones | March 9, 2010 2:05 PM
sólo falle en Toyota. Que buen test me deja muy satisfecho.
Posted by: Hugo Marin | March 13, 2010 11:54 AM
I got 14/20.
And I considered myself as absolute Helvetica Lover. Therefore, it was quiet surprising for me, to fail that hard.
Toyota and Matell were indeed the hardest to guess, but I also had troubles with Stapels. I found everything, that contained a C ,was very easy to solve, because of the opening.
Posted by: Markus | March 15, 2010 5:53 AM
I got 14/20, and I always considered myself as a Helvetica Lover.
Anyway, I mainly failed on everything with an A, so MATELL and TOYOTA were not that easy for me either.On the other hand, I found everything with a C quiet easy to figure out.
Posted by: Markus | March 15, 2010 5:59 AM
Did good. 20/20.
Posted by: Daniel | March 15, 2010 6:12 AM