Helvetica Über Alles

[Muirium]

Naturally, I did this quiz the moment I heard about it:

20A44C21-7790-480E-BB9C-2745D06A1B72.jpeg (348.82 KiB) Viewed 4772 times

http://www.ironicsans.com/helvarialquiz/

There’s some real trick shots in there, after the warmup rounds you see above. Well pleased I achieved a perfect score.

Spoiler:

DF15DAF9-F94E-44EA-B06A-8AC44FBC57F8.png (28.9 KiB) Viewed 4772 times

Helvetica, accept no substitute. On keyboards most of all. Topre / IBM lifestyle!

[hansichen]

I'd put the picture in a spoiler

Interesting comparison, I guesss my ocd isn't strong enough to go wild on these fonts

[andrewjoy]

I got 20 out of 20 of them, but i put 18 as 2 where a guess . Lower case its a joke its that easy to tell.

Upper case not so much but G S and O give it away if you look close.

[depletedvespene]

20/20 here, but only after I got a refresher on what the differences are. As for the score on the first attempt... I'm glad the 5th ammendment exists.

[Khers]

I got 20 out of 20 of them, but i put 18 as 2 where a guess . Lower case its a joke its that easy to tell.

Upper case not so much but G S and O give it away if you look close.

I had a similar experience, ended up with 20/20, but two of them, Toyota and Mattel, were just lucky guesses.

[Muirium]

Yes, those are the hard ones. The lowercases are just to make sure you’ve your eyes open! More fun doing the test this way, with full handmade logos, than simple text. You can tell there’s effort in there, even if it is betrayed by shitty Arial.

One that’s missing is Microsoft. Those same bastards who popularised Arial instead of paying Helvetica’s distribution royalties still went with the authentic article for themselves!



After a few attempts…

[Hypersphere]

I get a Helvetica refresher course every day simply by looking at my HHKB keycaps.

Whenever I see a non-Helvetica R or G on a keyboard, my gut winces.

Nevertheless, are there any newcomer typefaces that people here appreciate?

[depletedvespene]

I actually like Adobe's Source Sans Pro.

(there's certainly not enough too choose from when it comes to monospaced, screen-oriented fonts)

[Muirium]

Avenir is a wonderful font. Not exactly a newcomer, but it’s the one I write in, the occasional time I’m not in the mood for Helvetica.



A little newer is, of course, Granite’s fantastic pick of Gotham.



Speaking of mid-century inspired Americana: this set currently has my eye. Especially Lionel Text.

https://www.fontdiner.com/fonts/in-flight-meal-font-set

Beware the whimsy!

[andrewjoy]

I don't know why but i have a soft spot for Accidental Presidency

[Muirium]

Great name, but the kerning could use a lot of work:

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https://www.dafont.com/accidental-presiden.font

[andrewjoy]

I know , but i think its to save space more than anything else.

It works well for UI elements i would not use it in print. It has a modern flair to it without all the gamer font nastyness.

Something that both crowds can accept .

What do you think of

https://github.com/rbanffy/3270font

[Hypersphere]

@Muirium,

I suppose you are using the original Avenir typeface and not a derivative such as Avenir Next W04 (?).

As a practical matter, I do quite a lot of work with colleagues collaborating on the writing of documents and presentations. Most of my colleagues use MS Windows and MS Office, a few use Macs, and a very few (myself included) use Linux and LibreOffice. Given these and other constraints (such as font embedding not always working, e.g., on PPTX files between Mac and Windows), it is usually easier to use font families that are normally installed on most people's computers. With all this in mind, and not wanting to precipitate a flame war, what do think of members of the Microsoft "C font" families, such as Calibri?

[depletedvespene]

Gee, font composing has gotten so much more sophisticated than what was the norm in my time. Sometimes I wonder if I should make the effort of converting my screen "readable" fonts (from 1993!) to a modern format. I've seen it done with other old screen fonts, so I know it can be done.

[Hypersphere]

I actually like Adobe's Source Sans Pro.

(there's certainly not enough too choose from when it comes to monospaced, screen-oriented fonts)

You raise an important point. In general, typefaces suit various needs (e.g., web pages, presentations, street signs, airport signs, billboards, word processing documents, scientific journal articles, screen fonts, or programming). There is no single typeface that can perform all these functions extremely well.

Regarding programming and terminal fonts, indeed, there are not many choices, especially when narrowing the field to those containing slashed or dotted zeros. If it were not for the lack of dotted or slashed zeros, I like Lucida Console as a terminal typeface, but to get slashed zeros, I use Consolas. Source Code Pro looks good as well, and it has dotted zeros to make it easier to distinguish between uppercase "O" and zero.

[Blaise170]

My favorite font for programming is PragmataPro, but I don't support the author of it (I got a copyright infringement notice on a GitHub repo that I had forked and had forgotten about).