Helvetica can be spotted in commercial wordmarks like 3M, American Airlines, American Apparel, AT&T, Jeep, BMW, Lufthansa, Microsoft, Toyota, Motorola etc. When Apple “momentarily” switched to using Helvetica as their main interface typeface, it caused real usability and readability issues for certain users.Īrial can be found in Microsoft Windows, other Microsoft software applications, Apple Mac OS, PostScript computer printers, Minitel/ Prestel teletext systems, hyper terminals etc. Some people would also agree that Helvetica sucks for any type of UI work since it wasn’t really developed for use on screen displays. The word 'illiterate' is hard to read when in Helvetica compared with Source Sans Pro. One example cited by designer Viljami Salminen in his article Typography for User Interfaces is the word 'illiterate'. Arial has diagonal terminal strokes giving it a less mechanical appearance than Helvetica which has straight cuts.Īrial and Helvetica are not the most legible typefaces because - like many sans serif typefaces - they have indistinguishable capital i and lower case L. The overall treatment of curves is softer and fuller in Arial when compared to Helvetica. The tail of 'R' in Helvetica flows out from center, curves straight down and ends in a slight curve to the right.Īrial contains more humanist characteristics than Helvetica which is originally Grotesk.

In Arial 'R' the tail flows down and to right from center and straightens out at an angle to the end.

The 'G' in Helvetica has a spur at bottom of stem and the curve at bottom flows into the stem. 'G' in Arial has no spur at bottom and curve meets the stem at an angle. The end strokes of 'S' and 'C' are horizontal in Helvetica while in Arial they are at an angle. The top of 't' is cut off at angles in Arial whereas in Helvetica 't' has straight cuts. The bowl of 'a' flows back into the stem like 's' in Helvetica, where as the bowl is intersected with a slight curve in Arial. The a in Helvetica has a tail while Arial does not. The x- height of both Arial and Helvetica are same, which is why they are often confused for each other. Helvetica and Arial share many similar characters but some characters are different. The differences in the letters a, r, t, C, S, G and R in Arial and Helvetica

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