Slashdot Mirror
Comic Sans, Font of Ill Will
Kelson writes "The Wall Street Journal profiles Vincent Connare, designer of the web's most-hated font, Comic Sans. Not surprisingly, the font's origins go back to Microsoft Bob, where he saw a talking dog speaking in Times New Roman. Connare pulled out Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns for reference, and created the comic book-style font over the next week. 'Mr. Connare has looked on, alternately amused and mortified, as Comic Sans has spread from a software project at Microsoft Corp. 15 years ago to grade-school fliers and holiday newsletters, Disney ads and Beanie Baby tags, business emails, street signs, Bibles, porn sites, gravestones and hospital posters about bowel cancer. ... The jolly typeface has spawned the Ban Comic Sans movement, nearly a decade old but stronger now than ever, thanks to the Web."
Comic Sans itself isn't a bad font. It is easily readable, and more than anything else, that is the best measure of a font.
Just because it is so popular people hate it. It's like people hating on pop stars, Windows, and Kraft Parmesan cheese.
Popular doesn't mean bad. On the contrary, it means it fits the needs of many people.
Well, at least he got something right -- the name.
Microsoft Bob is certainly comical -- It's one of the biggest jokes around.
Except perhaps ME and Vista.
It was made to be tiny text, yet people to continue to use it for normal and large sized text! That's it. Screw them all. I'm switching my websites to Wing Dings.
New phrase: "font-snob"
Copyright thehickcoder 2009
http://achewood.com/index.php?date=07052007
Whoever said that Microsoft Bob never had any effect on the world?
Again, failure in the article summary. Direct link: http://bancomicsans.com/ We don't need news sites to tell us around something when we can just directly go to it.
Because so many of them use it.
I've gotten change requests and requirements specs in Comic Sans.
/usr/games/fortune
I'm going to start using it at work, often. it fits. I hope it infuriates many.
From the WSJ article: "An online comic strip shows a gang kicking and swearing at Mr. Connare." That would be this.
It is not related to be easy to read or not, or because it is widely used or not.
I just hate when someone delivers a report written in comic sans ms OR even WORSE, submits a paper written in that font.
It's like going to a job interview with sandals and bathsuit.
see this study: http://www.surl.org/usabilitynews/81/PersonalityofFonts.asp
and this one proves (even with a tiny sample) that kids love this font: http://psychology.wichita.edu/mbernard/articles/UPAfontchildrenpaper.pdf
Yeah, it's (somewhat) easy to read, but it's only suitable for kids books. The problem is that it's been used in all the places the summary mentions, and the person who chose to use it obviously had zero knowledge about fonts. Some fonts are used for content, some for presentation, others are easier to read on computer screens and others are suited for print.
Learn your goddamn fonts or stick to the defaults in MS Office. Arial is a sans-serif font, easier to read on computers (so it's used in Outlook & Excel). Times New Roman is used in Word because serifs help guide the eye along the line in large blocks of text. These fonts are overused and boring, but at least they don't distract the reader from the message.
. . . my girlfriend, if she knew the font. She said she knew the name but not the font, and pulled it up on her Mac (of course). Her response:
"Schrecklich (frightful)!" She then added, "I have never used it, and never will."
Of course, that's just her opinion, but it's definitely not:
Just because it is so popular people hate it.
She just thinks that it is butt-ugly.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
I was going to post that but the AC beat me to it
http://www.vimeo.com/274428
How can you have Comic Sans in an email - email is a plain text medium! Pica was good enough from my daddy, it's good enough for me! And what's this business with "!" amd "=="? The proper syntax is .NOT. and .EQ.
Seriously, however, it Comic Sans really that common? I have to admit to being an old fart but I do a lot of document work, and I had to go look up what Comic Sans looked like. I had seen it before and yes, it's goofy, but is it really an issue?
Brett
Comic sans may have its detractors, but it is more readable for dyslexics than many, see for example dyslexic.com, British Dyslexia Association, Wikipedia.
Today's Jerkcity seems apropos:
http://jerkcity.com/jerkcity3820.gif
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?
I'm not a fan of Comic Sans but they want it banned while at the same time using some thing equally lame, myspace. http://www.myspace.com/bancomicsans
I wouldn't take advice on good taste from them.
The typeface isn't the problem. In fact, I rather like it. It is a well-designed typeface, very readable, and appropriate for playful images - projects like children's books, comic books, children's toys and clothing, and the like. You know. its intended purpose.
The problem is, the typeface (a "typeface" is an outline/shape - it's not a "font" until it has size and weight, kerning, etc. attributed to it) has become used for things where it is completely inappropriate: the main text in "professional"[sic] web sites, books, official documents, advertisements, and so forth.
I use the typeface on occasion - but only where it's appropriate. In nearly every case where I see Comic Sans used, Helvetica or Arial or even Verdana would be far more appropriate. I won't stop using the Comic Sans typeface where it is appropriate (dialog for comic/clip art/line art images/strips, for example) but I have never nor would I ever plaster it all over the place.
No one typeface is intended to be used for all circumstances. The type of user who would use Comic Sans in a professional document is the same kind of "designer"[sic] who would mix typefaces from four or five (or more) different font families in a single document; you know, as if they were creating examples of how NOT to use typefaces.
Just as with guns, the problem isn't fonts; the problem is people.
Oh, and you're curious about my nit-picking about "font" vs. "typeface?" I'm not in the wrong here. See:
http://www.webopedia.com/quick_ref/fonts.asp
http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/theyre-not-fonts
http://desktoppub.about.com/b/2005/05/02/2-minute-tutorial-font-vs-typeface.htm
http://www.publish.com/c/a/Graphics-Tools/Font-vs-typeface/
http://fontfeed.com/archives/font-or-typeface/
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Not being familiar with this font, I searched around and found the official "Type Specimen" page showing what it looks like in the different HTML sizes etc -- http://www.microsoft.com/typography/web/fonts/comicsns/default.htm
Hey, it was a job as a beach lifeguard, you insensitive clod!
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
In early versions of Netscape, you could link to a remote font of your own choosing. The font-copyright people were up in arms about this, Microsoft didn't implement it in IE, and it was taken out of Netscape. That's why fonts on the web suck so much. You're either stuck with the lowest common denominator of fonts (Times Roman, Arial, Courier, or Comic Sans MS), or you can put a font into an image, which is silly but standard practice.
That's how we got into this mess.
Here's an example of a page that uses downloadable fonts. Unless you have a very old browser, it will look ugly. There's a more recent attempt to work around the problem with Flash. Wrong answer.
http://achewood.com/index.php?date=07052007
It's easy to bitch about Comic Sans, harder to find a replacement. What have you got that's informal, open, and legible down to six-point?
None of the linked sites has anything to offer beyond whining about Microsoft's monopoly on font choices. I suspect it would be more acceptable if Apple took it, changed a few bits and called it "Different Sans".
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
Last year I visited the museum at Rideau Hall, the official residence of the Governor General of Canada (the representative of the Queen). They had a copy there of the royal letter formally appointing the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. It was set in Comic Sans. I am completely serious.
I used to work at a print shop. We offered document services like graphic design in addition to our standard "photocopy bind laminate" stuff. Our owner billed herself as a great graphic designer, but I'll be damned if she didn't use Comic Sans in every design. Even people who said "Yeah, can you use Times please?" would get Comic Sans, often dark green on a pink background. I once did something for a client which everyone thought was pretty damn good, and she went in a changed the colors and font to some horrible mix of pastels and Comic Sans. Then she told the client that I'd done it, and he asked her to redo it so it "wasn't so terrible."
*****
Dear Mary,
I yearn for you tragically,
A.T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
When I came into my webmaster job a few years ago, I found the entire site was done with Comic Sans. We're an academic unit, so this was just not appropriate for the site. It took a while to clear it all up because it was a large site even back then, plus there was no single way my predecessor had chosen to implement the fonts - although there were a lot of "<font face=..." tags.
You might argue that Comic Sans has its place; but I learned to hate it with a passion those first few days. (As an aside - fixing all that did finally motivate me to learn regexps)
It was amazing how simply cleaning out that one silly font changed the site. I kept getting compliments from the faculty - "looks like now we have a REAL webmaster!" - just because I removed Comic Sans.
#DeleteChrome
On an unrelated matter, he cannot do 24+58 in his head and he teaches 'Aircraft Design'.
If you haven't seen it yet, check out the movie Helvetica. It explains how a simple font has replaced nearly every other font for business logos and typeface. If you have netflix, It's still on instant play.
I never thought a font could be so interesting...
SLOW NEWS DAY. I am really suprised to find that anyone but a seriuously anal typographer REALLY even cares about what font you use providing it is readable...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Is he related to Yahoo Serious?
I saw him in a movie once...
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
I work at a research reactor. Sometimes I get forms called Reactor Irradiation Requests sent to me from the rod office, which I need to sign. The RIRs are usually printed in Comic Sans.
Sometimes I've thought about typing my stuff in Rugby font, which was used by 80's British band Spacemen 3 on their album covers, and named after their hometown of Rugby. Somehow I don't think my boss would like that.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/233/456245383_405882a8af.jpg?v=0 I see this sign on my way to work, what on earth were those Aussies thinking?
I initially read this as "Comic Sans, Font of the Wii!" (I blame lack of coffee). Of course I was like "have the folks at Nintendo gone round the bend?" but at the same time it was believable enough that I almost didn't do a doubletake. And that is scary.
The reason old terminal are in uppercase only is due to readability. Try for example "i l 1 !" and compare to "I L 1 !" heck many current "old" application (read from the 1960/1970) support lowercase (and have for the last 10/20 years) but only output uppercase due to readability. I program on such an application. The things about deity is a very old joke.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Last time I saw a talking dog speaking in Times New Roman, I was pretty sure it was a flashback....
[citation needed]
That pretty much sums up religion in a nutshell.
How about 40,000+ witnesses?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun
Absolutely, and this is the real reason Comic Sans raises so much dust - because it reveals your vehement utterances whereas Windings does not unless you use certain characters from it.
Her lips were softer than a duck's bill, but her quacks
I once wrote an AppleScript bundle .app that moves Comic Sans to the trash, then emails itself out to everyone in the user's Mac OS X Address Book. In fact, I still keep it around. Enjoy.
Perhaps we should start a Times New Roman hate group, since that default font is so prevalent everywhere because people are too damn lazy to change it. I've come to hate that font.
Yeah, I know, sounds stupid doesn't it. Almost as stupid as a 10-year old movement to ban a font. Say it with me now. It's just a font.
Comic Sans font fills a unique slot that no other widely available (read: free) font provides. It allows an informal alternative to the other too formal and stuffy fonts for purposes that don't want to be all officious.
I feel that it's biggest drawback is it's name. (If you don't think a name can hurt you, try to tell someone to use GIMP, or even worse, Qtpfsgui.) If Comic Sans had been called Informal Sans I believe that there would be much less angst over it.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Not a permanent backlash, of course. Just a one-time just-to-piss-everyone-off kind of backlash. Say, pick a day on the calendar where all sites everywhere replace "Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" on their stylesheets with "Comic Sans" for 24 hours.
Say it's for charity or a "in an effort to bring awareness to..." kind of thing. Whatever. Just pick something.
So, October 1 good for everybody?
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Well, it's hard to find a replacement that Microsoft ships for free with its OS. But one of the more infuriating things about Comic Sans is that the name implies it's a font that looks like comic book lettering. The truth is, pretty much every single comic book printed today is lettered using a computer font of some kind. There are dozens of fonts designed specifically for this purpose. And pretty much all of them look better than Comic Sans. Comic Sans is just grotesquely ugly, full stop.
Breakfast served all day!
What about Papyrus? Where is the outrage over that faux-elegant atrocity?
Hey, it was a job as a beach lifeguard, you insensitive clod!
Hey, there are no bitches at this place, you insensitive clod!
Slightly more on-topic, modern Hebrew has spawned some really nice typefaces including the one for the Obama election badge which, owing to that very lack of vowels, could very neatly be read as "bless Obama". Masada was a big mistake, guys, also letting the Greeks get their hands on Christianity. If you'd played your cards right, we'd all be using Hebrew, and computing would be a lot simpler, SQL and Windows would be less of a pain in the backside.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Since I have a Mac, I use Chalkboard instead! Huuuge improvement, I must say.
Constitutionally Correct
You know if, after considering all of the numerous problems plaguing human civilization, you decide that web page font selection is the one problem that really gets your panties in a bunch, your life has been WAY too easy.
> Comic Sans itself isn't a bad font.
Yes, it is. Opinions having the same value, you can keep yours, I keep mine -- but I don't have to despise Microsoft (which I do) to dislike Comic Sans. It would be bad even if created by any other person.
> It is easily readable, and more than anything else, that is the best measure of a font.
No. Well, it's easily readable, but that's not "the best measure of a font". The best measure depends on function: a wedding card font needs not to be easily readable; nor does a personal script font (here what's important is to resemble the author's own calligraphy). In other situations readability may be sacrificed because of style (think about logos, art/films, parodies etc.)
In the specific case of CS, it could be ok for such a software like M$-Bob, but it is not well-fitted e.g. for Comic Books! People who draw CBs have a minimum standard of quality -- get any issue of Archies or Spiderman and you'll see how Comic Sans would be inadequate if used there.
> Just because it is so popular people hate it.
People don't hate it. Hate is for enemies, your worst favored food -- which your family made you eat for years. People find it ugly and not well done. That's like the child crying "the emperor is naked": everybody knows it is ugly, but some sly folks pretend there is an invisible cloth. In this case, they pretend CS is a typefont.
> It's like people hating on pop stars,
Well, some celebrities are cool, others do suck.
> Windows,
You're kidding, right? (I mean trolling)
> and Kraft Parmesan cheese.
No, that's what YOU hate. I have lactose intolerance and my favourite food is, of course, cheese (with the possible exception of cottage cheese, but even so it's great for culinary uses).
I wonder until when registered people will get +4 Insightful for anything they write. /. is turning to a nobility system. If you're a noble (i.e., registered), maybe you can dance naked and get +5, deep-thinking here...
I agree. It has a lot of variation in letter shapes, which makes for easy readability compared to other sans-serif typefaces. And not surprisingly, considering that it was derived from comic book hand-lettering, it is more readable in caps that most typefaces. And it is one of the few typefaces that conveys an air of informality without looking cutesy. I personally prefer Apple's Chalkboard, which I find more attractive, but neither one is going to win awards for beauty.
I wouldn't want to read a paragraph of Comic Sans--but then I feel the same way about Helvetica, a font that manages to be simultaneously boring, unattractive, and slow to read. Indeed, if I had to choose between magically converting all text in Helvetica to Comic Sans, or the reverse, I would definitely choose the former.
http://www.localarcade.com/arcade_art/data/thumbnails/3/CRACKMAN.jpg
Seriously, what other video game has a character that *is* part of the font?
[paraphrased from an old hindu parable]
dargaud was a man who denied the Deity.
Every time that something happened to him, good or bad, he reminded himself "There is no god". Everyday he repeated these words, and prided himself in his knowledge and derided those who sought guidance or succor from the heavens.
dargaud then died, and was immediately taken into the presence of the Deity.
Why am I here?, he wondered, I always denied your existence!
You are here because you kept me in your mind constantly!
No sig for the moment.
sometimes i really am just fed up with people at my office
in which case i go into outlook, and default all of my reply emails in purple comic sans bold 12 pt
no one emails me anymore
ahhhhh peace and quiet
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This is to some degree Off-Topic, Informative and (maybe) Interesting.
Comic Sans became part of the Core Fonts For The Web thanks to its inclusion with the Internet Explorer 4 suite application, Microsoft Comic Chat.
Yeah, it had shipped with Microsoft products like Office beforehand, but wasn't required for use by any of them until the Office Assistant used it in Office 97.
Now, Comic Chat was actually a pretty good idea, especially at the time. Nevertheless, despite being as ubiquitous as IE4 itself at that time, it went unused (almost anyone who had the patience for chat in those days was already far happier with another program of their choice), and was quietly discontinued a few years later. The Comic Sans MS font, however, goes with Internet Explorer wherever it goes as a result of that legacy.
Anyway, the places where Microsoft used it - Office Assistants, Comic Chat, etc. - are perfectly good uses for it. They can't help how it's been abused, especially since they've provided such good examples of how to use it correctly (which is not normally something they do well themselves).
As a legacy option, we're quite stuck with it; especially if nothing better at its intended job comes along to replace it. Like IE itself, it sure won't die out on its own without being attacked from all sides by superior offerings - that means superior at the same job, not superior at some other job you would prefer to take its place.
I'll admit, it's nicer than plain sans-serif fonts when it comes to comics, but I prefer the fonts that came with Celsys' ComicStudio software. (Of course, I think only one of them actually has non-Japanese characters.) Strangely, the English-language version, MangaStudio, doesn't come with any fonts as far as I know... I guess you're supposed to use Comic Sa-- Oh god. It's us! We're the problem!
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
At least on my browser, the article titles on the main pager are in Arial or similar. I (capital i) and l (lower L) are the same. I had to read the title 3 times before understanding the words!
This is 3 times written differently...
Font of III WiII
Font of lll Will
Font of Ill Will
Atari rules... ermm... ruled.
Nope. I remember Commodore versions of leetspeak on BBS's in the 1980s. Pound signs in place of L's were popular. And a surprising number of people were willing to put up with a shift-lock key - not a caps-lock key, but a SHIFT-lock key - to type in all-caps. That's the real origin of !!11!1 exclamation points.
There was no such thing as search yet, let alone censorship. We did it because, when we were 13, we thought it was cool.
I went to smbus.org (http://smbus.org/specs/) last week to get some specs. I thought I found a teenaged girl's SMBus fansite from 1997. I'm not that big on web design, but seriously.
There's a version III of the Wii already? What happened to version II? And why would they use Comic Sans as the system's typeface?
... and then they built the supercollider.
I use this font everyday because it is very close to the basic handwriting that is taught at an elementary level.
Kids have a tendancy to copy, so using fonts that are not like handwriting encourage bad habits. You would be amazed the number of kids that can perfectly duplicate the 'a' that you see here.
They need to be able to move on to cursive eventually, so I need the Comic font, or something like it to encourage them to write, right.
Everything has a use, somewhere.
With the exception of IEEE journal publications, I use Comic Sans on term papers for my English class, powerpoint presentation on computer architecture, email correspondence, AIM etc. , and not a single professor/boss/friend complain about it.
Yeah it is not MLA style to use Comic Sans MS 12-pt font in your term paper, but I got A's anyway. Comic Sans MS is the best way to fill up spaces on the paper.
New Economic Perspectives
If you're seeing jaggies, you're not using ClearType.
I've seen jaggies on machines with ClearType. They're especially noticeable in web pages that use authentic Helvetica (not Arial) at 16px (12pt on most monitors); the o-height is a whole pixel taller than the x-height, making letters like n and r look off balance. The problem is that ClearType abuses the hinting information in TrueType fonts: it stretches the glyphs horizontally by a factor of 9 but doesn't stretch them vertically at all. A lot of hints in fonts that were not specifically revised for ClearType fail under this sort of extreme pixel aspect ratio. And unlike the coverage-based smoothing in Windows 2000, ClearType doesn't smooth nearly-horizontal diagonal lines at all.
A shame that Ubuntu or any other Linux distro doesn't include mscorefonts installed by default
A shame that Canonical doesn't have cash equivalent to half of Microsoft Corporation's market capitalization in order to acquire a majority stake in Microsoft, which would force Microsoft to release msttcorefonts under a free license.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3k5oY9AHHM
Ubuntu is the most popular linux distro
Except that it isn't.
Use of Fedora on servers might distort things. For instance, Fedora 7 comes preinstalled on Go Daddy's virtual dedicated servers. But as I see it, font snob complaints are directed more toward desktop distributions, not server distributions that use a web interface if any GUI at all. Do you claim Fedora has more desktop installations than Ubuntu?
Everybody can play that. Ogg is an open format and players exist for all operating systems.
Even the operating system on an un-jailbroken iPod Touch mobile computer? What about iPod Shuffle, Nano, or Classic media players? Or web browsers in set-top boxes that can play Flash 7 flv but not ogg, such as Wii Internet Channel? Or PCs that you use but do not own, therefore you don't have an administrator account?
You might be aware of the current answer: CSS web fonts... now available in the current breed of beta/alpha browsers.
A lot of people in my audience use computers that somebody else owns. They cannot install "the current breed of beta/alpha browsers" on the machines they use because their user accounts are not part of the wheel group. Let me know when the supported versions of Windows Internet Explorer, Safari, and Firefox can do CSS web fonts.
Always thought that was for Cthulhu. Guess someone decided if the name was propagated enough, the stars might come ri..{nocarrier}
There I said it and I feel good.
Seriously, I like comic sans. No I don't use it all the time, just sometimes when I am typing something whimsical.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Take a quiz, find who you are.
As several people have stated, Comic Sans is a good font when used in the proper context. For example, what could be a better choice of font for code written in Visual Basic?
a times new roman guy but I suppose I could very well be part of the problem. I just don't see the issue at all, not to bad mouth either side, but it seems the height of trivial personally.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Just to keep on topic:
I've seen various fonts move through the usual cycle, becoming popular, overused, then fade into the "use when suitable" category. Other ways of expressing this change:
I respect graphic artists for respecting the proper usage of typefaces, and I sometimes learn by realizing what they did not include in the advertisement.
---
My actual reply to you:
I so need a mod point ... your reply is the funniest response I've ever received. (As you know, I seldom receive replies.) Thank you Sir, You've just made my day.
I've tried a competing brand on various different foods - bread, vegetables and meat. So far, I still find plain congee the best way to bring out the food paste's flavor. I am interested in continuing to test Vegemite/Marmite/Cenovis/Borvil on different foods.
Thank you for writing!
I kind of like Comic Sans myself, but the linked article includes examples of the typeface being used in ways that it should never be used.
PS — Comic Sans 12 pt bold is a font. Comic Sans is a typeface. Please try to keep it straight.
Comic Sans is VERY over used. When you see a site infested with it, you immediately know the site was done by an amateur.