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arial & helvetica

on friday, i hosted a screening of helvetica for some buddies of mine that didn’t know that there were other typefaces besides times new roman. it turns out, there ARE other typefaces and one of them is helvetica (and another of them is papyrus.)

the documentary does not explore the relationship between helvetica and microsoft’s derivative, arial. so to help ignite the post-viewing dialogue, i made this supplement illustrating the key differences in letterforms. however, in place of any spirited debate, my buddies decided instead to take turns delivering roundhouses to my jaw, saying “a documentary about a font is as interesting as it sounds.” i could not agree more.

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update (9/22/2009): welcome internet-at-large! i am ostrich-feather-tickled that you are finding this chart to be such as gas. should you want to see my other type-related posts, you can give this a gentle click. should you want to see a collection of my favourite posts, you can get dirty with this link. should you want to close this tab and see what else is on the internet (hint: pictures of cats), you can hit cmd + w and be on your way.

I did the quiz and got 19/20 for telling the difference between Helvetica and Arial. I realized that I loved Helvetica because it was very well balanced and weighted, in terms of distributing the weight in the letter, and also because it was very level; the ends of letters are often cut straight or parallel to the ground