I'm becoming a Helvetica freak.
That's what I would have said a couple of months ago. Now I know I am one!
I see it everywhere, I spot it when I'm not looking, it's mad. But I love it. That was up until I learnt just how similar Microsoft's counterpart typeface Arial was to it. So I did some research into the differences between them.
The fundamental difference is the angle at the end of a stroke. Helvetica works perpendicularly whereas Arial has angles. This is most noticeable in letters like c, e, f, r where the letter ends with an unclosed stroke. The a is different too, Helvetica almost flicking off, Arial straight down. The small t is also a giveaway. The top terminal in Helvetica is again cut perpendicularly, but the Arial t is slanted down left. There's more but I won't ramble. I'm Helvetica crazy. I'm currently compiling a list of good examples and bad examples of Helvetica in branding, because quite frankly it is over-used, but having said that, where it is used well it is such a beautiful little font. So it's a little research project I'm conducting, which I'm sure I'll put up here in due course.
This is a beautiful little graphic by swissmiss to pinpoint the Helvetica vs Arial comparisons.
