Just like a good band with bad fans, we don't balk at Comic Sans, we balk at the people who use comic sans for inappropriate things. (Or to use a more computery analogy, there's nothing wrong with capital letters or all-caps, but some users use them inappropriately).
City memo minutes should not be distributed in Comic Sans. Wedding invitations should probably not be in Comic Sans. The Surrey police should not have released a memo on rape and sexual assault in Comic Sans[1].
There are times when you do not want to be unserious and insincere, and some people are, and its embarrassing. Comic Sans is just a vector for that, but if you find fault with it, its still the people who are at fault.
There is definitely an internet lynch mob mentality on this even though the inappropriate use critique is spot on. You'd have to be a brave designer to use it, even in an befitting way. Apps like Balsamiq have dropped it and subbed in look-a-likes just so people have cover to say it isn't Comic Sans.
I disagree, it's just not a good font. It has zero contrast (not suitable for display text and print), no harmony (not suitable for body text), and it's poorly hinted (not suitable for screen text). It looks more like finger painting than comic lettering [1]. It's not even a true sans serif; in the article, the author admits to cheating.
There are way better fonts that Microsoft could've licensed for MS Bob, like Helvetica Rounded [2] or Dom Casual [3].
"There are times when you do not want to be unserious and insincere, and some people are, and its embarrassing. Comic Sans is just a vector for that, but if you find fault with it, its still the people who are at fault."
I don't understand what this means, could you clarify please?
I love your Surrey Police links and comments. I'm not sure if it's in poor taste to laugh, but frankly I find them hysterical!
All-caps is also generally less legible than all-lower-case:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_caps (in particular reference 7, Tinker, Miles A. (1963). Legibility of Print. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press. p. 65. ISBN 6316674.)
My point is that it isn't just a matter of taste. There are known, quantified ways in which all-caps is worse. Ditto Comic Sans, if you read another response to your post.
Sad that Mr. Connare feels the need to defend the creation of one of the most popular typefaces of all time. I can't help but feel like some point has been missed.
When I think about all the serious thought and energy that went into the fonts available to us, and the ratio by which the average person chooses comic sans or papyrus after scrolling through their long, user-hostile list of typefaces, I feel like a market is underserved.
One of the reasons people don't like Comic Sans is because it was overused, largely thanks to being included with a bunch of default Microsoft tools. It was also use in the wrong contexts.
Amusingly, I think the same holds true of the typeface that sparked the whole thing: Time New Roman. Far too many people use it for far too much, sometimes in the wrong context. So maybe we should all use Times less too! (I tend to use Palatino or Garamond myself.)
I'm tired of seeing the same few fonts everywhere. For whatever reason Times and Comic Sans really stand out, but this really holds for all the "web-safe" fonts--which also happen to be the fonts everyone used to flock to in Microsoft Word.
Please consider branching out and using something else for your next document.
If you know how to select Comic Sans, you know how to select a different serif like Times. In default Windows installs there's at least 3-5 other choices for "serious serif font". And people do that, also the less tech-savvy ones: if they just want to type their homework, it's Times (or Arial), no second thought. But if it's something they want to "stand out" or be different they can easily pick a substitute like Georgia from the list.
But if people just write a note, or anything they intend to come across as "not too stern, not too serious, but also not too boring" there is just Comic Sans, in the default list of Windows fonts.
Like another commenter said, it's like a market is underserved. Except it's not a market, because it's Windows' default font list (there's enough alternatives on the market). It needs another informal, slightly quirky font if you want to break the reign of Comic Sans. They might have gone a bit in this direction with Calibri (subtly rounded) and Candara (playful) but those are way too subtle to notice in the (oddly tiny) font selection lists.
And something else, IMO, Times News Roman is for me the example that, apart from popularity and being an over-used default font, there is something extra wrong with Comic Sans. After all those years of being negatively conditioned with Times as the default Apache 404 Error font, and so many other places, all that's caused is a strong notion of neutrality and blandness. I don't dislike Times, and I also believe there is no discussion on that it's strictly better designed than Comic Sans: it's got more glyphs, the letter forms are more constant and harmonious, etc. And with some thought[0], you can combine it with another font (Arial being the obvious choice) and use it in a headline/body text combo, and it actually doesn't even look half bad. Somebody put some thought in that, it looks clean and they just happen to be two of the most-used fonts. I challenge anyone to pull that off with Comic Sans, even in combination with another font.
Personally I think, add just one cool informal font to the Windows default list, and IMO it will be fine. Really the thing that bothers me most about Comic Sans is that it's the only choice [for people not savvy enough to install extra fonts], so I can't really fault anyone for using it because any alternative I could suggest involves quite a bit of extra work for them (in addition it might revert to some default font on the next office PC where it's not available).
Thanks. This is what I wanted to say as well. I am heartily sick of Times/Arial/Comic as you rightly said. Hell, I even saw it on some road sign/car parking bays where some kind of large Sans (Highway Sans??) is legally obligatory! Now Times as replace the venerable Courier New in US govt. documents.... Oh the horror!
For me it was anything but those. :-) +1 for Palatino/Garamond. I also read somewhere that Garamond uses less ink too (but readability on A5 for fonts less than 11 pt is somewhat hard)
Serif: I am partial to Century Schoolbook myself because it is eminently readable by all ages (on 10pt no less!) on A5 sizes. (I read somewhere that this was the first font that launched Knuth's imagination on kerning, etc. (in a nice way), and his life long fascination for typography)
Sans-Serif: Century Gothic - thin but very readable on small sizes as well. I later found out that this font takes up less printer ink while being printed as well. So double yay!
>> Please consider branching out and using something else for your next document
Very true. At least in this day and age of fontsquirrel, dafont, urbanfont, etc. etc.... there is no excuse to spend at least 15 mins to look for some interesting fonts. :-)
Speaking of fonts losing favor because of overuse, look what's happened to Gotham since the Obama campaign used it in their 2008 campaign. I first saw it used in the old Chicago 2016 olympics pitches [1], and then started seeing it more and more, but after the presidential campaign [2], it started showing up everywhere [3] to the point that it's lost much of its original power and mystique.
I don't really understand the hate on Times. It's more or less the perfect neutral font when you want to say "I didn't make a choice because this document is of a nature where a design choice need not or should not be made." It is sufficiently serious that the reader is not distracted from the content of the writing by the character of the letter forms. It's neutral, and a non-choice, in my opinion.
Seriously, people don't care and they don't choose Time as much as it is either the default or the only font they know of.
And honestly, I use the default pretty much all the time (which seldom is Times nowadays). Back in early school I was told Verdana was better and since it was more spacious that made a strong argument for it as well, since it was easier to fill a page... I truly don't feel that I can say that a font is better than another one. It might look better but that might just as well be in a comic-sans way which would just be a disaster. Afraid of that I keep to the default.
Word processors should be much better at communicating this, the only thing they do is give you a default but other than that offer no help. For the typical person that whole font list would be better off removed entirely (and yet it has always had such a high priority among the GUI settings).
Microsoft did partly address that by making Cambria and Calibri its default header and body fonts.
But really, basic knowledge about Typography would help a great deal in creating decent looking content. A Serif title with Sans body-text for the web makes content easier to read, and the inverse is true for print.
What about Mistral? Do you think it's been abused? I'm from Montreal and it's been use everywhere. Just look at this and tell me it's hasn't been used a lot! Maybe more than Comic Sans and we never hear about it. http://www.mattsoar.org/gallery/Mistral
Everything from movie posters(Drive,Flashdance), to asian restaurants and much more.
And here I thought it was just to piss off pretentious typography fascists and give self-righteous design snobs something to huff about.
Really, I've always been a defender of comic sans as appropriate where the intent is to be casual or personal.
One critical comment by a BBC article reader:
"The main problem I have with Comic Sans is that it makes everything written in it look like a parish newsletter pinned to a noticeboard outside the local church."
Exactly. Isn't that the point?
Criticizing this font is like criticizing a 5 year old child's handwriting on a birthday card, and asking why he didn't have professionally calligraphy.
I don't think even the most pretentious of designers would ever scoff at the use of Comic Sans where it was appropriate and fitting, such as on the invitation to a 6 year old's birthday party. That's where is fits, it exudes 'fun'.
Where 'pretentious' designers do begin to huff is when it is used in a clearly inappropriately context such as on police notices raising awareness of rape.
The handwriting example isn't particularly good because learning calligraphy is a skill that I assume takes a decent amount of time to reach proficiency in. Making a couple of extra clicks in a word processor and selecting something like Arial is not.
Dude. Creative Writer changed my life. I had forgotten about it until I read this article. I was experimenting with long-form fiction writing and screenplays at like 7 or 8 years old thanks largely to that program.
Simon Garfield wrote a great book called "Just My Type"[1] which dives deep into the history of landmark fonts. Includes a full chapter on Comic Sans, highly recommended read.
Canada has some interesting towns. I wonder if a Comic Sans rebranding would do anything for "Swastika, Ontario" - the sort of naming equivalent for radioactivity - for example! :)
Offtopic semi-ignorant question: As a non-designer, can someone explain to me why I'd ever need more than a single serif font, a single sans-serif font, a single monospace font (and ok, a single "fun" font)? Why should I care about the differences between Times New Roman and Garamond, or between Arial and Verdana? Even when I look closely I struggle to see the differences within categories, so I find it hard to believe that my document or logo or whatever will be perceived differently by a reader because it uses the wrong font within the correct category.
You can't not communicate with a typeface - they always have a certain feel, which is why there's a whole lot of them. Typefaces also have characteristics that make them more suitable for certain situations. For example, Georgia is designed for the screen with a tall x-height but Garamond looks better in print with its small x-height. Then there's condensed fonts, small caps.. It's certainly hard for a non-designer to catch all the visual differences but I believe they are sensed subconsciously by all.
Regarding Comic Sans misuse, I suspect many people are looking for a "handwritten" font, of which Comic Sans is often the first similar sort of thing, and people gravitate to it.
[+] [-] simonsarris|13 years ago|reply
Just like a good band with bad fans, we don't balk at Comic Sans, we balk at the people who use comic sans for inappropriate things. (Or to use a more computery analogy, there's nothing wrong with capital letters or all-caps, but some users use them inappropriately).
City memo minutes should not be distributed in Comic Sans. Wedding invitations should probably not be in Comic Sans. The Surrey police should not have released a memo on rape and sexual assault in Comic Sans[1].
There are times when you do not want to be unserious and insincere, and some people are, and its embarrassing. Comic Sans is just a vector for that, but if you find fault with it, its still the people who are at fault.
[1] http://i.imgur.com/C6QY1yp.jpg
(The Surrey Police strike again! http://i.imgur.com/Kn68ubk.jpg)
(the compulsive designers in us will notice the logo at the top of that one is off-center, too)
[+] [-] NoPiece|13 years ago|reply
http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups/font
[+] [-] supercanuck|13 years ago|reply
(http://www.vatican.va/bxvi/omaggio/index_en.html)
[+] [-] Samuel_Michon|13 years ago|reply
I disagree, it's just not a good font. It has zero contrast (not suitable for display text and print), no harmony (not suitable for body text), and it's poorly hinted (not suitable for screen text). It looks more like finger painting than comic lettering [1]. It's not even a true sans serif; in the article, the author admits to cheating.
There are way better fonts that Microsoft could've licensed for MS Bob, like Helvetica Rounded [2] or Dom Casual [3].
[1] http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/hanoded/inky-fingers/
[2] http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/adobe/helvetica-rounded/
[3] http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/paratype/dom-casual/
[+] [-] egeozcan|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JDGM|13 years ago|reply
I don't understand what this means, could you clarify please?
I love your Surrey Police links and comments. I'm not sure if it's in poor taste to laugh, but frankly I find them hysterical!
[+] [-] gegenschall|13 years ago|reply
Actually, as a band you have a certain say in which fans you'll going to have.
[+] [-] derleth|13 years ago|reply
In the transportation world, all-caps is known to be harder to read than mixed-case in fixed-message signs:
http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/5892/is-all-caps...
All-caps is also generally less legible than all-lower-case:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_caps (in particular reference 7, Tinker, Miles A. (1963). Legibility of Print. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press. p. 65. ISBN 6316674.)
My point is that it isn't just a matter of taste. There are known, quantified ways in which all-caps is worse. Ditto Comic Sans, if you read another response to your post.
[+] [-] lucian303|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] awakeasleep|13 years ago|reply
When I think about all the serious thought and energy that went into the fonts available to us, and the ratio by which the average person chooses comic sans or papyrus after scrolling through their long, user-hostile list of typefaces, I feel like a market is underserved.
[+] [-] tikhonj|13 years ago|reply
Amusingly, I think the same holds true of the typeface that sparked the whole thing: Time New Roman. Far too many people use it for far too much, sometimes in the wrong context. So maybe we should all use Times less too! (I tend to use Palatino or Garamond myself.)
I'm tired of seeing the same few fonts everywhere. For whatever reason Times and Comic Sans really stand out, but this really holds for all the "web-safe" fonts--which also happen to be the fonts everyone used to flock to in Microsoft Word.
Please consider branching out and using something else for your next document.
[+] [-] tripzilch|13 years ago|reply
But if people just write a note, or anything they intend to come across as "not too stern, not too serious, but also not too boring" there is just Comic Sans, in the default list of Windows fonts.
Like another commenter said, it's like a market is underserved. Except it's not a market, because it's Windows' default font list (there's enough alternatives on the market). It needs another informal, slightly quirky font if you want to break the reign of Comic Sans. They might have gone a bit in this direction with Calibri (subtly rounded) and Candara (playful) but those are way too subtle to notice in the (oddly tiny) font selection lists.
And something else, IMO, Times News Roman is for me the example that, apart from popularity and being an over-used default font, there is something extra wrong with Comic Sans. After all those years of being negatively conditioned with Times as the default Apache 404 Error font, and so many other places, all that's caused is a strong notion of neutrality and blandness. I don't dislike Times, and I also believe there is no discussion on that it's strictly better designed than Comic Sans: it's got more glyphs, the letter forms are more constant and harmonious, etc. And with some thought[0], you can combine it with another font (Arial being the obvious choice) and use it in a headline/body text combo, and it actually doesn't even look half bad. Somebody put some thought in that, it looks clean and they just happen to be two of the most-used fonts. I challenge anyone to pull that off with Comic Sans, even in combination with another font.
Personally I think, add just one cool informal font to the Windows default list, and IMO it will be fine. Really the thing that bothers me most about Comic Sans is that it's the only choice [for people not savvy enough to install extra fonts], so I can't really fault anyone for using it because any alternative I could suggest involves quite a bit of extra work for them (in addition it might revert to some default font on the next office PC where it's not available).
[0] this almost always means: whitespace
[+] [-] Surio|13 years ago|reply
For me it was anything but those. :-) +1 for Palatino/Garamond. I also read somewhere that Garamond uses less ink too (but readability on A5 for fonts less than 11 pt is somewhat hard)
Serif: I am partial to Century Schoolbook myself because it is eminently readable by all ages (on 10pt no less!) on A5 sizes. (I read somewhere that this was the first font that launched Knuth's imagination on kerning, etc. (in a nice way), and his life long fascination for typography)
Sans-Serif: Century Gothic - thin but very readable on small sizes as well. I later found out that this font takes up less printer ink while being printed as well. So double yay!
>> Please consider branching out and using something else for your next document
Very true. At least in this day and age of fontsquirrel, dafont, urbanfont, etc. etc.... there is no excuse to spend at least 15 mins to look for some interesting fonts. :-)
[+] [-] doomlaser|13 years ago|reply
[1] http://sarabot2000.typepad.com/sara/images/2007/06/05/chicag...
[2] http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4tQRaybbR9Q/TVIPdMUeGhI/AAAAAAAAA9...
[3] http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4tQRaybbR9Q/TVIUjyKhjsI/AAAAAAAAA_...
[+] [-] jeremyswank|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tjoff|13 years ago|reply
Seriously, people don't care and they don't choose Time as much as it is either the default or the only font they know of.
And honestly, I use the default pretty much all the time (which seldom is Times nowadays). Back in early school I was told Verdana was better and since it was more spacious that made a strong argument for it as well, since it was easier to fill a page... I truly don't feel that I can say that a font is better than another one. It might look better but that might just as well be in a comic-sans way which would just be a disaster. Afraid of that I keep to the default.
Word processors should be much better at communicating this, the only thing they do is give you a default but other than that offer no help. For the typical person that whole font list would be better off removed entirely (and yet it has always had such a high priority among the GUI settings).
[+] [-] ameen|13 years ago|reply
But really, basic knowledge about Typography would help a great deal in creating decent looking content. A Serif title with Sans body-text for the web makes content easier to read, and the inverse is true for print.
[+] [-] seez|13 years ago|reply
Everything from movie posters(Drive,Flashdance), to asian restaurants and much more.
[+] [-] aneth4|13 years ago|reply
Really, I've always been a defender of comic sans as appropriate where the intent is to be casual or personal.
One critical comment by a BBC article reader:
"The main problem I have with Comic Sans is that it makes everything written in it look like a parish newsletter pinned to a noticeboard outside the local church."
Exactly. Isn't that the point?
Criticizing this font is like criticizing a 5 year old child's handwriting on a birthday card, and asking why he didn't have professionally calligraphy.
[+] [-] larrydavid|13 years ago|reply
Where 'pretentious' designers do begin to huff is when it is used in a clearly inappropriately context such as on police notices raising awareness of rape.
The handwriting example isn't particularly good because learning calligraphy is a skill that I assume takes a decent amount of time to reach proficiency in. Making a couple of extra clicks in a word processor and selecting something like Arial is not.
http://inappropriatecomicsans.tumblr.com/day/2012/03/17
[+] [-] beatpanda|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peterkelly|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] obstacle1|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eru|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BenjaminCoe|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HunterV|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pavel_lishin|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justjimmy|13 years ago|reply
http://www.designedgecanada.com/news/2013/20130115688.shtml
:P
[+] [-] drucken|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] setheron|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Argorak|13 years ago|reply
http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/why-you-hate-comic-sans/
Especially interesting is the discussion that comic sans is actually a good font when it comes to aliasing. ("Comic Sans isn’t Used as Intended")
[+] [-] troymc|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smackmybishop|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] IgorPartola|13 years ago|reply
Isn't this why most things exist? Because sometimes they are better than other similar thing?
[+] [-] signed0|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neya|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TazeTSchnitzel|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] doctorpangloss|13 years ago|reply
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/08/hear-all-ye-...
[+] [-] mkopinsky|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tommikaikkonen|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tekker|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crusso|13 years ago|reply
Is it too late for me to have an opinion on whether or not I hate Comic Sans?
[+] [-] tripzilch|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bobwaycott|13 years ago|reply
End of discussion.