Arial or Helvetica?
Once there was a typeface called Helvetica.
It was extremely popular.
Later came a software company called Microsoft.
They “borrowed” Helvetica for their operating system and called it Arial.
This inferior typeface is now on millions of desktops all over the world.
Can you tell the difference between the original and the rip-off in these ten examples?
Seemingly, Arial was designed in 1982 by Robin Nicholas and Patricia Saunders — good name! — for Monotype.
Results
I got 7/10.
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April 17th, 2007 at 7:13 am
Last week I saw the Helvetica documentary at Rhode Island School of Design: Thumbs up (Way up!). If you’ve ever thought twice before hitting “Print,” or wondered at the mystery of (graphical) creation, see Helvetica. The DVD is due out at the end of the summer with a great blooper reel included.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:08 am
I got 8/10!
Now that I know the differences, I prefer Helvetica. I always would, by default, as a Mac lover, but the upper case ‘R’ in Helvetica is so much nicer than the one in Arial. And my name requires a big R.
Gareth, the upper case ‘G’ is also significanrly different between the two typefaces, which is your preference?
November 6th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
I see that Imagine on BBC1 tonight (6Nov 22:35) has a shorter version of the film about the typeface Helvetica.
See http://www.bbc.co.uk/imagine/article/helvetica.shtml
Kennedy