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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.
New phrase: "font-snob"
Copyright thehickcoder 2009
http://achewood.com/index.php?date=07052007
Pretty sure Microsoft Bob is the bigger joke. It's the Star Wars Holiday Special of the Microsoft world. They just pretend it never happened whenever possible.
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.
Of course, she's going out with you... So there's no accounting for taste.
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
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
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.
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.
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
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...
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?
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."
[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.