My girlfriend sent me a letter. So I tested and graded it.

It’s been a long time since we did the Monday Demotivators; as we pointed out when we stopped, with so many people unemployed, it didn’t seem there was anyone to demotivate on Mondays any more!  But the other day my girlfriend sent me a letter that inspired me. I mean literally sent me a letter. It was the letter “B”, and she needed to know what typeface it was. And before I go on, let’s just clarify the difference between typeface and font, so the more graphically inclined in your life don’t cringe every time you say “font”. Anyway, since my girlfriend had so little character – or only one character anyway – I couldn’t use the easiest cheat, the What The Font tool at MyFonts.com. So in the process, I learned that – like any normal person – she couldn’t tell Palatino from Times, Ariel from Helvetica, or Futura from Avant Garde. I also learned that in spite of hundreds of hours of yearning, searching, and kerning, I’m a bit of a typetard myself. Are YOU a font of typeface wisdom? Let’s find out. First, a super easy test, especially if you’re hipster enough to have seen the film Helvetica. If you can’t pass the So you think you can tell Arial from Helvetica? quiz, you’re a total noob. Your next logical choice if you failed that one would be Sara Newton’s Fontastic Quiz, which provides some verbal cues for the fontographically impaired. Bumping it up a notch, we have the iFont game , which is still multiple choice, but a little challenging. Which is why the original version was called The Rather Difficult Font Game. And if you’re more interested in knowing what type YOU are, rather than the other way around, you may want to try the What Type Are You (has audio) from the design firm Pentagram. Happy Monday!