
"Ban Comic Sans," illustration by Dave and Holly Combs, 2004
Ah, Spain, homeland of Dali, land of bullfighting, tapas and epic siestas. Visitors to Barcelona and the Costa Brava are somewhat obligated to acclimate to the mysterious Catalan dialect, a cross between Spanish, Portugese and pidgin Esperanto, where every third word seems to begin with the letter "X." In this coastal region slung just below the Pyrenees, one might expect to see evidence of the enduring cultural tensions between Spain and Catalonia — different kinds of signs or symbols, for instance — but on the surface at least, no such rift is exposed. Instead, the country clings to a visual language that celebrates the goofy: this is a country awash in Comic Sans.
"Goofy" is a subjective classification, often targeted by typographic elitists (Gadget and Sand come to mind) but in all fairness, Comic Sans is in a class all its own. And Microsoft's not the only culprit: "Ban Comic Sans" Founder Dave Coombs attacks Apple's lookalike typeface, — Chalkboard — on the grounds that it's a poseur font, lacking the angular components which offset the vertical stress of the main strokes in the lowercase characters such as m, n, and h.
None of this, however, stops the public from loving it. In Typophile's online forums, a designer rightly observes that the vast majority of laymen love Comic Sans. "Why do you think it's all over the place?" he asks. "No 'decent' corporation cares what a minority of specialists thinks."
And he's right. Who cares if a small minority of deeply principled letterform diehards care about the wanton proliferation of a font that single-handedly throws typographic evolution back, say, a few thousand years or so?
Clearly, there's no accounting for taste.
Some time ago on the web, the Comic Sans Appreciation Society (designated by an "I-heart-comic-sans" banner prominently positioned on its home page) proudly noted that Comic Sans was at one time the font of choice over at NASA. (The implicit suggestion here is that once we start colonizing on planets other than our own, Comic Sans will be the common currency.) NASA has since upgraded its online typography — though not, it should be noted, the type on it's kids' site.
On this particular topic I have my own Comic Sans pet peeve, which is that it has become the default typeface for anything associated with children: every school newsletter, every ad aimed at kids, everything that smacks of the 12-and-under crowd. It used to be that just a wobbling baseline did that (I guess it suggested that real children couldn't possibly be expected to write straight, so they couldn't be expected to read straight either) but once Comic Sans came along, there was enough wobbliness in the letterforms themselves to leave the baseline just as it was. After years of rigorous brainwashing, my children are mercifully Comic Sans averse, just as they know that anything with 4% real juice isn't actually juice and that Barbie's feet are orthopedically deformed. Cartoon characters — and the typefaces that accompany them — are all very well and good, so long as they come with good typography.
Which brings us back to Comic Sans.
On his website, Comic Sans designer Vincent Connare offers a public apology. "Comic Sans," he admits, "was never designed as a typeface but as a solution to a problem with the often overlooked part of a computer program’s interface, the typeface used to communicate the message. The inspiration came at the shock of seeing Times New Roman used in an inappropriate way." (No doubt Stanley Morrison was already turning in his grave over that one.) A quick search on Flickr reveals that Connare is one of the most prolific posters in the Comic Sans Pool: his documentation of its wide dissemination across Europe and the United States certainly reinforces the font's ubiquity, leading one to conclude that there is, apparently, no inappropriate way to use Comic Sans. Which is maybe what makes it so inappropriate.
Comments [74]
a fellow ugly font hater,
Matt
07.20.06
12:15
"I need a fun font for the invite to my son's play," I think to myself looking at the myriad of possibilities Word affords me. "Oooh! 'Comic Sans,' that sounds fun. And sophisticated too!"
Another one that really gets my goat is Impact designed by Geoffrey Lee. It was a favorite with many of my fellow design students back in the day. Favored for it's... impact?
*sigh
It's not surprising I guess. The names Gotham, AkzidenzGrotesque, News Gothic, Dante, Sabon, do little to describe the well considered proportions of strokes and counters paces.
07.20.06
12:54
I hit the floor laughing over this because it's so true.
excellent article.
However I have to wonder why fonts like Comic Sans/ Sand/etc. are so popular too the Non-Designer.
Maybe it's a way to add some humor, humanity (a butt-ugly humanity at that) into the endless blah-ness of modern life.
If you're going to have to type up a report about how widget X has increased output by 2.2% over a period of 5 holiday sessions, setting that report in Comic Sans is in my opinion a kind of futile cry for meaning and worth in a otherwise lacking existence/ content.
Same thing applies to those lovely Myspace pages set in comic sans and cluttered with photos, music, videos, etc. etc. Ugly as hell but still falls within the rubric of "futile cry for meaning and worth in a otherwise lacking existence."
So is the problem Comic Sans, or the blah-ness of most people's existence/ the world?
07.20.06
01:24
07.20.06
03:37
07.20.06
04:39
In fact, why doesn't somebody design an alternative we can all live with? Something that makes the masses happy and warm, and doesn't make us cringe? It's a challenge (and perhaps an interesting social experiment)! Anyone willing to accept?
07.20.06
04:48
If you want a good laugh, check out this "loving" tribute to another oft-maligned typeface:
I heart papyrus.
And of course, Flickr's comic sans group, to which Vincent himself often contributes.
07.20.06
05:46
I myself can't seem to come to terms with why that font, over the thousands of others, is used near constantly... Its hardly attractive or fit for many purposes IMO.
On a recent visit to Cornwall, I saw everything from pub menus, arts & crafts fairs, under age drinking signs and road diversions all set in that loving font, Comic Sans. A superb, expensive restaurant had its sumptuous dishes loving laid out in that font. Even my manager at my previous job, PC World :/, set out all his staff memos and formal notices (including disciplinaries) in Comic Sans.
It got to the point that I said the infamous words 'Comic Sans must die' so many times, it just needed a clance at my friends for them to know what I was thinking... I'm done now! ;)
07.20.06
07:37
"What?" we ask. "We hate that font" ....
I also found that a lot of beginner classes for things use that font in presentations, I wonder if that is how it gains part of its popularity. It's not a chalkboard anymore, they need to stop thinking it is.
Comic Sans, please go away!
07.20.06
09:18
07.22.06
10:25
07.22.06
07:04
07.22.06
08:17
Who would pay 100$ for a font to make a birthday party flyer or search over the net for hours to fint a decent type?
May be designers, should use sexier names and release better fonts for free... then people would use them.
Of course it's irritating to see bad looking bevels, rainbow distorted fonts... but hey guys, it's also the fun part of it, that can sometimes give us inspiration to create better designs...
07.23.06
11:49
Fins aviat...
07.23.06
12:18
I can't help but think that if we really cared about the overuse of comic sans, someone might step up to design a more favourable alternative and endeavour to have it bundled with some ubiquitous bit of software.
speaking of this effect, it may not be long before we are saying the same about Rosewood..
07.23.06
08:54
07.23.06
10:02
07.24.06
09:05
07.24.06
09:21
You get it, Jessica.
07.24.06
01:26
07.24.06
02:26
I think Dogmatheque made a good point here, as a Designer I've lost track of all the sweet fonts that I've managed to somehow get hold off over the years but for a non designer faced with word, and the default font choices, I do fear that their choice of fonts may be limited.
I personally feel that if in doubt use Arial but then I'm not a 40 year old mother of two making a birthday flyer ;)
07.25.06
07:55
Sin acritud sea dicho de paso ;)
07.25.06
11:33
07.25.06
03:49
07.26.06
07:37
I have put Times New Roman next to Trajan Pro and folks in my office have not been able to tell the difference. Ditto for Helvetica, Myriad, Futura, etc. It's amazing to me that these fonts can be observed as being identical even to an untrained eye.
With this in mind, I have to say I understand why so many people gravitate toward hideous fonts like Comic Sans (Papyrus is another obvious example): they're the only fonts that look different to them.
Your mileage may vary. This is just what I've observed.
07.26.06
09:37
Ken
07.26.06
10:53
Connaire is not responsible for the massive misuse of that type.
regards
07.27.06
11:56
07.27.06
01:29
Although it represents a utopia I don't care for, I neither like nor dislike it. It is what it is. And who knows how lauded it may be 50 years from now, when time tempers us and nostagia makes us find Comic Sans enchanting?
And anyhow, Papyrus is more revolting.
07.28.06
02:40
07.28.06
03:52
Having been nailed by I heart Papyrus I've been initiated into the world of the font-elite. However, I have NO patience to look at hundreds of fonts. Serif or not, they all look so similar I get bored very quickly. I don't have the facility to be ably to identify a good font from a bad one when the differences are so subtle. I'd rather let the people who actually know and care about fonts decide for me.
I'd like a "manual of style" sort of guide of font-elite-approved typefaces for various purposes. I'd rather the font nerds out there offer some easy tips or just fix my font for me rather than mock me for my ignorance. Although I guess mocking is more fun.
07.28.06
07:58
07.31.06
04:11
07.31.06
06:42
08.02.06
12:28
Now consider the same scenario with a typeface. All the designers in the world could say that comic sans should not be used for (insert your reasons here). If those reasons are not based in logic or fact, chances are, the average person will disregard the designer's opinion if they happen to like the typeface. And here is the difference: the average person has the ability to disregard the designer's opinion. Unlike mounting a whaling expedition, John Doe has the ability to circumvent the designer by employing no other tools beyond a drop-down menu in Microsoft Word.
Maybe comic sans is just a scapegoat for our feelings of powerlessness...
08.03.06
11:30
08.04.06
01:19
"a cross between Spanish, Portugese and pidgin Esperanto" WTF!!!!
08.04.06
08:48
The example link you've provided is nonsense: yes, it talks about Catalonia, but is written by Richard Walker (not a catalan name, sure) and the domain is from UK!
Bad taste design is everywhere throughout the world. You can't say is a particular region's monopoly. For example bancomicssans.com, the organized reaction against Comic Sans, is based in Ontario and I don't believe that Ontario has all his newspapers, traffic signs, letters, etc. in Comic Sans.
08.04.06
08:57
The example link you've provided is nonsense: yes, it talks about Catalonia, but is written by Richard Walker (not a catalan name, sure) and the domain is from UK!
Bad taste design is everywhere throughout the world. You can't say is a particular region's monopoly. For example bancomicssans.com, the organized reaction against Comic Sans, is based in Ontario and I don't believe that Ontario has all his newspapers, traffic signs, letters, etc. in Comic Sans.
08.04.06
08:58
Please, don't say such a thing! A dialect!!?? LOL
Please, think before writing!
08.04.06
11:57
However, I must admit that I enjoyed every word of it. Many Catalans very often tend to annoy the rest of us Spaniards with their bloated self esteem and snooty claims of exceptionallity, singularity and superiority (our friend Père above seems to be a good example of it). Reading such a wild and blunt piece of tosh has been really liberating.
08.05.06
05:31
don't be cruel about the authors ignorance about languages and culture!
She seems to be an English native speaker, AKA a monolingual person who probably brutalizes a bit of French and tries hardly to pretend she is cool and educated while wraping a glass of expensive (not necessarilly good) wine. And who besides her clients or employers can be blamed for her having to travel on a hooligan budget and therefore just know Catalonia from the perspective of an alcoholic looser?
If design and academics were better paid she for sure would have had more time to read and get to know. It is true that we tend to forget that poorly educated Americans have to visit "Europe" in trips that cover 10 countries in 6 days. She was lucky and smart enough to get to travel like a true lowest class Englishman and enjoy costa brava's idilic paradises like Lloret, Calella or Platja d'Aro.
Glad to know Yale and NYU are not the places where to study design, art or culture.
cheers (going to take a siesta)
08.05.06
06:42
Then I started to wonder if visually aware adolescents weren't going to feel patronised, being served kiddie-comic lettering all the time. Like Joao with his taxes, how could we expect youngsters to treat ideas and information seriously? Inappropriate typography is the undermining of subject-matter.
So I decided on a different tack, I opened up Comic Sans and tried to see what could be making it more readable, accessible and friendly than other typefaces. I looked at spacing, weight of strokes, the shapes of individual letters, the non-symmetry of characters like p and q, and it became my starting point for the font Lexia Readable.
I made the decision to remove the irregular comic book style, what is often perceived as 'wackiness' or 'awkwardness', and replace it with tidier, cleaner, still slightly hand-drawn strokes that owe more to the typefaces used on dance flyers and fashion packaging. That decision may have been flawed - the comicky unevenness may be the very quality that improves legibility, but the kiddiness had to go to produce a more grown-up, less condescending font.
Download K-Type Lexia Readable, the regular and bold weights will be free forever. It may never have the ubiquity of Comic Sans unless Microsoft decide to package it, but dyslexia.com picked up on it straightaway and Macmillan publishing in New Zealand has commissioned two italics, so that's a start.
08.05.06
12:29
08.06.06
12:29
....so I think there are already lot of alternative fonts out there if people are looking for a 'warm, friendly' font....I just think there is a lack of education.
08.06.06
12:49
08.06.06
01:19
You need to travel, read and observe more.
Good luck, darling!
08.06.06
05:42
Xata! (word that really begins with X)
Has quedat tant i tant retratada, primer acuses barcelona d'estar plena de mal gust, dius que la nostra llengua es un dialecte, i despres assegures que la comic sans esta per tot arreu... i quan algu et demana que ho demostris ens enllaces a un web amb domini xxx.co.uk?? i en Anglès.
Xata (again) llegeix una mica, sobre Catalunya, i sobre el català, llavors poder podras esciure un blog.
Anims!
Et deixo un parell d'enllaços utils:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=br_ss_hs/102-7044197-1698502?platform=gurupa&url=index%3Dstripbooks%3Arelevance-above&keywords=catalonia&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Go
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=br_ss_hs/102-7044197-1698502?platform=gurupa&url=index%3Dstripbooks%3Arelevance-above&keywords=catalan&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Go
;)
08.06.06
05:52
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_language
08.06.06
09:52
08.07.06
07:38
With apologies to our readers who took offense. My error.
08.07.06
09:01
08.08.06
05:34
08.08.06
04:20
(i) OK, Catalan's a language. It is more cognate with Italian than Spanish, for a start.
(ii) I'm an English native speaker and I speak Catalan and French, and I don't drink wine (like Lord Byron) so I have no idea what Albert's little anglophobic rant is about.
08.15.06
06:52
find out more here Link
.....so there should be no excuse to use comic sans ever again........
(sorry if somebody has already mentioned this font in a previous post)
08.25.06
05:28
This discussion sounds like the blue-haired church ladies who gather in the back pew and cluck about what's happened to kids these days and why do these young people insist on wearing baggy shorts and flip-flops to the sunday services. Kind of like the fashion police at a stiff-necked, lock-jawed fund raiser. The take-away point is that the grungy kids are in fact in church and the fashion criminals are giving money at the fund-raiser. So who cares about the sartorial faux pas? I'd hate to expose my life to this group for fear of being pilloried for wearing a black belt with brown shoes. Heaven forbid!
I'd advise everyone to turn their attention to things that matter. It's a big world out there. My late, great brother-in-law had a wonderful phrase he often repeated as words to live by:
"You're either an energy source or an energy sink."
Focus positive energy on your sphere of influence.
08.25.06
09:46
Pictures or inappropriate uses of the font are fun, but I can't get enough of the posts by people who are genuinely upset and offended by a font.
It cracks me up!
Long live Comic Sans!
10.14.06
03:46
Personally I´d say that Helvetica is the problem, not Comic Sans.
10.16.06
04:01
10.19.06
09:53
A cross between Spanish, Portugese and pidgin Esperanto????
Every third word seems to begin with the letter "X."?????
May be you're a genious designer, but you're really retarded or you have never been in Catalonia, that's for sure.
11.10.06
05:24
And you're a charmless troll incapable of correcting someone's error without being insulting.
11.11.06
12:21
03.29.07
09:44
As part of my job, I have to do as the client says in this particular instance.
However, I am in silent agony. WHY would a company purposely choose comic sans as their professional font? There are so many better fonts that would be more suitable.
Sorry, just needed to vent.
04.08.07
04:55
08.30.07
03:46
But this article is typical of the lofty superiority designers believe they have on aesthetic considerations. Hear the rallying cry to the design revolution...no evolution...no let's keep things as they are...or as they were in that idealised time. Yawn. Just glad none of you are overtly political, your version of democracy would require not only a monarch and a plethora of staff to aid them in their administerial duties, but also a banal restrictive code to ensure they receive the proper worship.
Let's be critical, but lets also remember, if we're standing on the shoulders of giants, then our feet are no longer on the ground.
08.30.07
04:25
I used to do lots of painful freelance, and experienced all the horrors of clients with no taste. But you know what? More often than not you can slip in good design and people will appreciate it.
Just the other day I was doing a favor for my sister. A handout for a school party. It was badly written, and had notes about using a fun face (I am sure it said "font") and some specific clip art. I rewrote it it, laid it out in several weights of Akzidenz, and used a scrap of a previous illustration project (xmas tree and stars). They loved, loved, loved it.
So, is it purity, egalitarianism and populism or just ignorance? There are plenty of topics I am not an expert in, and I try to let professionals tell me what to do in those fields as well.
12.03.07
09:04
12.05.07
10:54
12.08.07
03:27
As to your link
Freud was an experimenter and supporter of cocaine as a antidepressant. hmmm... the psychology department at IU experiments with such again. As for comic sans...dyslexia..... hmmm... IU.... comic sans.....psychology....dyslexia...lab rats... cocaine...
Can you connect any of those dots?
Actually I saw that ad not in comic sans but in whatever non serif font the wantads are written in, in our local newspaper not directly in Bloomington. It was over a year ago, but how many volunteers could they get --not written in comic sans-- in small town Indiana?
12.08.07
05:36
You gotta remember our childhood imprinting of history on hoosier heads here is just a bit different to New York's. You can't exactly compare the town of Kinderhook to something like Lincoln's boyhood home, nor could you compare that rock called Manhattan to that 386-million-year-old fossil bed in Clarksville.
12.08.07
07:22
12.08.07
08:50
12.19.07
04:33
http://www.cafepress.com/thinkthebox.203958852
03.14.08
01:23
I wanted to point out, that the Catalan is not a dialect, is a latin language spoken by 8 milion people (Finnish has 5 milion and Dutch 15) which the oldest writtings found are older than the Spanish ones for example.
Also, the bullfighting is not a part of the Catalan tradition but exists because of touristic reasons.
A part of these wrong statements the article is great!
03.13.09
09:34