Whats so bad about Comic Sans?

[Traab]

I mean sure its not the most formal looking lettering, but it seems you cant go anywhere that deals with graphic design or web pages without seeing rants about, or insults centered around the font. Is this something that started out being sighed over because at one point it seemed so popular and overdone. Then it slowly snowballed into internet hatred? Or is there something truthfully terrible about the font itself, other than it not being the right choice for certain types of things?

[super dark33]

I mean sure its not the most formal looking lettering, but it seems you cant go anywhere that deals with graphic design or web pages without seeing rants about, or insults centered around the font. Is this something that started out being sighed over because at one point it seemed so popular and overdone. Then it slowly snowballed into internet hatred? Or is there something truthfully terrible about the font itself, other than it not being the right choice for certain types of things?

"I heared smart people hate it so ill hate it too"
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"I heared people on the internet hate it so ill hate it too"

[AtlanteanTroll]

Simply going to the Wikipedia article on the subject puts it in perspective. It wasn't that it got super popular, per se, but that people were demanding it's use for all sorts of things, where the font's tone didn't fit. (Can you imagine students submitting essays in Comic Sans?) And honestly, that makes the most sense. While Comic Sans isn't horrible, I would never use it for anything other than comics. Even here on GiTP, it doesn't look good. No clue what the default here is, but I prefer it immensely.

[Haruki-kun]

Nothing is wrong with it, it's just that it has a time and a place. If you're making a comic or sending out invitations to a 6 year-old's birthday party, Comic Sans is totally fine. If you're writing a dissertation, it's very much not.

Also, it shouldn't be used for big blocks of text. It's harder to read a block of Comic Sans than a block of Arial.

[Asta Kask]

I asked a friend who is in the business.

He said there are some problems with Comic Sans, but it all boils down to two things: a) it is difficult to read, and b) it draws attention to itself, which is something a font is not supposed to do.

[SiuiS]

I mean sure its not the most formal looking lettering, but it seems you cant go anywhere that deals with graphic design or web pages without seeing rants about, or insults centered around the font. Is this something that started out being sighed over because at one point it seemed so popular and overdone. Then it slowly snowballed into internet hatred? Or is there something truthfully terrible about the font itself, other than it not being the right choice for certain types of things?

Hype backlash mostly.


I asked a friend who is in the business.

He said there are some problems with Comic Sans, but it all boils down to two things: a) it is difficult to read, and b) it draws attention to itself, which is something a font is not supposed to do.

That makes sense.

[Haruki-kun]

Hype backlash mostly.

Hype backlash is true, but designers do need to know the correct and incorrect use.

[Traab]

I asked a friend who is in the business.

He said there are some problems with Comic Sans, but it all boils down to two things: a) it is difficult to read, and b) it draws attention to itself, which is something a font is not supposed to do.

I will admit this. Upon looking at my first post I wish I had increased the size by a single level. Comic sans seems to write more compact than this standard font. *EDIT* I should mention im talking about this after archive binging on Clients From Hell where the only other font to really seem to be looked down upon is papyrus. I wish that was an option here so I could easily check it out.

[DaedalusMkV]

There's nothing wrong with Comic Sans. There is, however, something very, very much wrong with people who use it for inter-office communications, wanted ads, school papers, essays, official notices and books.

Comic sans works well when you're dealing with short sentences or things that are supposed to look eye-catching and maybe silly. You don't write a comic book in Callibri, you don't write a technical manual in Book Antiqua and you don't write... Well, anything in Wingdings.

On the other hand, Impact sometimes has a certain horrible appeal. A post written entirely in it would probably be extremely stressful to read.

[FinnLassie]

Honestly, it's the best font to go for when teaching them weans. Annoying as heck, but it's so damn easy to read. Best for that purpose and absolutely nothing else.

[Traab]

There's nothing wrong with Comic Sans. There is, however, something very, very much wrong with people who use it for inter-office communications, wanted ads, school papers, essays, official notices and books.

Comic sans works well when you're dealing with short sentences or things that are supposed to look eye-catching and maybe silly. You don't write a comic book in Callibri, you don't write a technical manual in Book Antiqua and you don't write... Well, anything in Wingdings.

On the other hand, Impact sometimes has a certain horrible appeal. A post written entirely in it would probably be extremely stressful to read.

Holy crap Impact just turns into a giant bolded blur to me.

[super dark33]

When small Comic Sans looks dumb, but big,

It seems much better.

Plus, OOTS used to be written in Comic Sans until the old computer passed away, and it looked perfectly fine.

[Haruki-kun]

Holy crap Impact just turns into a giant bolded blur to me.

I would not use Impact for anything other than captioning pictures of cats on the Internet.

[JustPlayItLoud]

I read an article about comic sans a while ago that unfortunately for the life of me I can't find. It explained the standard go to answers of it being distracting and drawing attention to itself. I agree with both of those. When there are a lot of things going on - a comic perhaps - it's not a big deal because there so many things that grab your attention. In plain text, however, it's distracting when the font used causes you to unconsciously focus on the font more than the text.

There was also a theory in it that there was something about the shape of the lettering in comic sans that created a sort of multiplicative illegibility. In small snippets it's difficult to read but not that bad, but larger and larger blocks of text create a sort of cumulative "haze" around the text that makes it increasingly difficult to read the more you have to read it.

Personally, I hated it before the internet really picked up on it (hipster alert, I know) from back in high school. I remember peer reviewing several papers that the author had inexplicably typed in comic sans. When referencing a resume building lesson from another class, one of my teachers mentioned her resume was in comic sans because it was - and I quote verbatim, even after ten years - "fun and professional!"

[Razanir]

Comic Sans is a perfectly nice font. However, it's grossly overused. It is a font originally inspired by the lettering in comic books. (Watchmen, actually) Because of this light-hearted nature, it was a natural choice for children's material as well. It only became a hated font when people started using it for everything. Even for things like warning signs.

But again, it's not inherently bad. It's perfectly acceptable for, say, an invitation to a kid's birthday party. It's perfectly acceptable for comics, which is what the creator of it intended. For example, it was used in OOTS for the longest time, and I don't know that anyone was upset with the Giant over that. It's a perfectly nice font. It's just overused, and people unilaterally hate it for that.

EDIT: One other use. It's also easier on dyslexic eyes, IIRC.

(The same is true for Papyrus)

[Closet_Skeleton]

"I heared smart people hate it so ill hate it too"


Typesetting is a obscure and specialised discipline. Trusting experts isn't something you need to be so snide about. As someone with no interest on the subject I have to take their word for it.

[Jaycemonde]

Comic Sans is a perfectly nice font. However, it's grossly overused. It is a font originally inspired by the lettering in comic books. (Watchmen, actually) Because of this light-hearted nature, it was a natural choice for children's material as well. It only became a hated font when people started using it for everything. Even for things like warning signs.

But again, it's not inherently bad. It's perfectly acceptable for, say, an invitation to a kid's birthday party. It's perfectly acceptable for comics, which is what the creator of it intended. For example, it was used in OOTS for the longest time, and I don't know that anyone was upset with the Giant over that. It's a perfectly nice font. It's just overused, and people unilaterally hate it for that.

EDIT: One other use. It's also easier on dyslexic eyes, IIRC.

(The same is true for Papyrus)

Basically this, yeah.

[Aedilred]

Well, first off, it wasn't really designed as a typeface to be used in documents. It was created for MS Bob, to be used in speech bubbles in short snippets like the comic fonts that inspired it. And it's fine in that context. It's fine for the odd phrase in an informal, slightly childish situation. "Comic" Sans, after all.

The problem came when it became used near-universally in entirely inappropriate contexts, like professional documents, formal notices, even tombstones. That it's perceived as a "friendly typeface" also makes it the ideal font for printing passive-aggressive notes in. Especially for people with no sense of humour. It's the blue text of fonts, except moreso.

To be honest, it's nothing the internet hasn't done a million times since, and Comic Sans hit its peak of popularity about the time the internet really took off as a household thing, making it one of the first worldwide "memes", even if it's not recognised as such. Like all memes, it got old, an older generation latched onto it as something "cool" and suddenly it was everywhere and everyone was sick of it. People just can't be trusted to use things responsibly. A few years later, it still hadn't gone away and that drove people to the sort of furious nerdrage that it inspires now.

It's not a very good typeface. Even from a "mimicking handwriting to teach children" perspective there are better and less annoying typefaces out there. But it's not the end of civilisation either; it's not utterly appalling and illegible.

If it hadn't become so extraordinarily popular, it would remain a weird, quirky font that was rarely used. As it is, it's hated because of the popularity and exposure it achieved.

[Asta Kask]

I would think general MicroSoft hate has something to do with it as well.

[SiuiS]

I'm still not seeig anything that's so bad about it

"It's used out of context!" Well, who decides context?
"It's so informal, it has no business here!" What makes it informal?
"It's just not appropriate, is all." Why not?

I understand childish things shouldn't be used in the adult world, but what creates the distinction?

[Asta Kask]

I'm still not seeig anything that's so bad about it

"It's used out of context!" Well, who decides context?
"It's so informal, it has no business here!" What makes it informal?
"It's just not appropriate, is all." Why not?

I understand childish things shouldn't be used in the adult world, but what creates the distinction?

Other peoples' expectations. It's like everyone driving on the left side of the road - it's better for everyone if everyone follows it, even if it's arbitrary and could just as easily be the right side. Or the link between a language's words and the concepts in our heads are largely arbitrary, yet speaking your own ConLang at the McDonald's will bring you only blank stares.

If a font draws attention to itself, it is a distraction from the message. This applies even if it draws attention because of a reputation which may be unfair.

[Aedilred]

I'm still not seeig anything that's so bad about it

"It's used out of context!" Well, who decides context?
"It's so informal, it has no business here!" What makes it informal?
"It's just not appropriate, is all." Why not?


It's the typeface equivalent of wearing a clown costume. Why is it the clown costume of typefaces? Some combination of design and actual use, as with the clown costume itself. Even right there in the name - Comic Sans, not Serious Sans or Professional Sans or whatever.

I am not expert enough on typefaces to tell you what it is inherently about it that makes it look silly and comic (although I suspect the irregularity and wobbly lines have something to do with it) but to the modern eye it just does. And it's a great piece of design, because that's exactly what it was intended to do. That same quality which makes it attractive in the first place for some purposes also makes it inappropriate in formal settings or for delivering serious messages.

Perception of typefaces in different ways is how it originally came about, after all: the designer thought it was equally inappropriate for animated characters in a fun program for children to be addressing its users in TNR. And he was probably right.

Although I'd disagree with this on a matter of principle:


I understand childish things shouldn't be used in the adult world, but what creates the distinction?

I will allow C.S. Lewis to rebut:

Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

[Asta Kask]

I will allow C.S. Lewis to rebut:

So, did he use a diaper, drool, and speak in two-word sentences all his life? There are childish behaviors that are undesirable in an adult. We don't have to condemn or approve them en masse.

[Aedilred]

So, did he use a diaper, drool, and speak in two-word sentences all his life? There are childish behaviors that are undesirable in an adult. We don't have to condemn or approve them en masse.

Erm, probably not, but then I'm not sure how you got that from that anyway. He's not advocating for "childish things" to be adopted wholesale, just saying that childish things shouldn't be written off for the mere sake of being childish. Which is suggested by the remark "... childish things shouldn't be used in the adult world" to which I was responding.

Although I probably would argue for a distinction to be drawn between childishness and infantilism, in any case.

[Asta Kask]

You're right. I didn't read the quote well enough. Sorry.

[Razanir]

Erm, probably not, but then I'm not sure how you got that from that anyway. He's not advocating for "childish things" to be adopted wholesale, just saying that childish things shouldn't be written off for the mere sake of being childish. Which is suggested by the remark "... childish things shouldn't be used in the adult world" to which I was responding.

That said, Comic Sans still isn't a very professional font... at all. (Except in comics)

[Aedilred]

That said, Comic Sans still isn't a very professional font... at all. (Except in comics)

Oh, I agree completely.

[Killer Angel]

Other peoples' expectations. It's like everyone driving on the left side of the road - it's better for everyone if everyone follows it, even if it's arbitrary and could just as easily be the right side.

The consequences may differ slightly, though. :smalltongue:

[Icewraith]

Madam,

It is my deepest regret to inform you that your son was killed in action ...

Sir,

With the passing of your father it is my duty to inform you that you are the sole heir of his estate...

Team,

Thank you for all your hard work and unpaid overtime. Your dedication is what makes our company a success...

Four score and seven years ago, our forefathers...

Today, I consider myself, the luckiest man on the face of the earth...
COMIC SANS IS NOT FOR SRS.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Madam,

It is my deepest regret to inform you that your son was killed in action ...

Sir,

With the passing of your father it is my duty to inform you that you are the sole heir of his estate...

Team,

Thank you for all your hard work and unpaid overtime. Your dedication is what makes our company a success...

Four score and seven years ago, our forefathers...

Today, I consider myself, the luckiest man on the face of the earth...
COMIC SANS IS NOT FOR SRS.

I dunno, it makes it look handwritten. :smalltongue:

[Anarion]

I'm still not seeig anything that's so bad about it

"It's used out of context!" Well, who decides context?
"It's so informal, it has no business here!" What makes it informal?
"It's just not appropriate, is all." Why not?

I understand childish things shouldn't be used in the adult world, but what creates the distinction?

It is, at heart, a silly-looking font, and can create a jarring and (I believe) unintended impression when used in the wrong context. For example, I have had secretaries from major businesses send me professional emails written in comic sans (presumably because they thought it was cute). When that appears in the midst of a bunch of other emails written in more traditional styles, it jumps out as being "off" and more than a little bit "ugly." In its proper context, like speech balloons, there isn't that comparison and it might read easier and be more effective than a stiffer font. But when you're talking about regular dealings, a font that jumps in your face and looks silly just tends to give the reader a negative first impression.

[SiuiS]

It's the typeface equivalent of wearing a clown costume. Why is it the clown costume of typefaces? Some combination of design and actual use, as with the clown costume itself. Even right there in the name - Comic Sans, not Serious Sans or Professional Sans or whatever.

There's an immediate problem with this explanation; you're making a value judgement, using subjective descriptions, and then leaving them to be challenged. What's wrong with a clown costume? Clowns are not inherently off, or funny, or nonserious. I've seen some damned serious and downright dignified clowns. Watch cirque su soleil stuff, you'll see it too.

I also think you are making a very obvious mistake wih the word comic. It is not the [funny or humorous] sans font; it is the [visually stylistic] font. It's manga sans, not Robin Williams sans.

And the CS Lewis quote... That irritates me. Not the quote, the situation here. Rather than be upset, I think it'll be more productive to explain why I would be upset.

My use of adult and child for the thread, both in tone and language. The use of a quote from an author, an appeal to authority, would normally make sense. But you are discarding the context of the conversation we've all been having in order to make an unrelated point seemingly at my expense. I know the nature of adult and child, I know the quote, I know the problems with feeling that childish = bad, and now I am in a position where I either have to seemingly accept the wisdom provided (that I didn't need) or defend myself from an insinuated accusation of not being clever enough, and it just leaves me with this poorly articulated ball of frustration in my belly. I mean, did I somehow give the impression that I think children are bad? Have I not comported myself with more open-mindedness than this in the past? Where did I go wrong that it seems good to correct me on something so small as a word choice that's specifically using someone else's words to ask them why they picked those words and what they mean?

I dunno. It feels condescending but I know you weren't being condescending. My instinct is to talk about it for resolution but we don't even know each other. This will probably come across as angry instead of just confused and frustrated.



Today, I consider myself, the luckiest man on the face of the earth...[/SIZE]
COMIC SANS IS NOT FOR SRS.


http://i1229.photobucket.com/albums/ee468/WizardPony/examples/620D5C79-2CCF-4BFF-B4B3-A54F32BDEEA6.png


Although, presumably, being a sentient creature of at least the forum minimum 13 years old and being Internet proficient, I have seen the Comic Sans don't in use prior and still feel asking the question is worthwhile, which means demonstration has not made it clear in the past, which means continued demonstration instead of an articulate answer isn't going to make things clearer by any stretch.


It is, at heart, a silly-looking font, and can create a jarring and (I believe) unintended impression when used in the wrong context. For example, I have had secretaries from major businesses send me professional emails written in comic sans (presumably because they thought it was cute). When that appears in the midst of a bunch of other emails written in more traditional styles, it jumps out as being "off" and more than a little bit "ugly." In its proper context, like speech balloons, there isn't that comparison and it might read easier and be more effective than a stiffer font. But when you're talking about regular dealings, a font that jumps in your face and looks silly just tends to give the reader a negative first impression.

That makes more sense. Being a proud nail and intimating a severe misread of the situation on part of the user is a much clearer explanation.

[Aedilred]

I dunno, it makes it look handwritten. :smalltongue:
It makes it look handwritten by a neat eleven-year-old. It's still not a positive impression, all things considered.

It's very hard to get a typeface to "feel" like handwriting. Nearly impossible without coding in a degree of jitter and variance in the letter formation and kerning, beyond the scope of normal word-processors, and much harder than just writing it by hand unless you're physically incapable of doing so. Even a typeface that mimics a handwritten style still looks wrong, because it's too regular. Comic Sans is less regular than some (which is part of what gives it its cutesy, informal feeling, I think), but each letter and ligature is still identical to its siblings.

The human eye is surprisingly good at picking up on the tiny imperfections that give away the differences between a digital production and something produced by hand. If you're hoping to get away with credit for handwriting by using Comic Sans, you deserve to be slapped upside the head. :smalltongue: Twice, really, once for trying to get credit for handwriting when you didn't, second for using Comic Sans on a document theoretically important enough to write by hand.

[FinnLassie]

It makes it look handwritten by a neat eleven-year-old. It's still not a positive impression, all things considered.

Yeeeah. I agree. I witness this every day, but from the hands of 10/11-year-olds. Then it's what we desire and want them to achieve. And then they grow up and learn to adapt the learnt handwriting to their own, personal style.

[Aedilred]

There's an immediate problem with this explanation; you're making a value judgement, using subjective descriptions, and then leaving them to be challenged. What's wrong with a clown costume? Clowns are not inherently off, or funny, or nonserious. I've seen some damned serious and downright dignified clowns. Watch cirque su soleil stuff, you'll see it too.
You wouldn't wear a clown costume to work, though, would you? (Unless you work as a clown). Or wear one to deliver bad news? There is an accepted context in which clown costumes are acceptable and if you remove them from that, they look weird. Comic Sans is basically the same. There's nothing inherently wrong with either a clown costume or Comic Sans, but they were not designed to be used in a formal environment, standard practice has mirrored that, and when they are, it looks at best off and at worst outright disrespectful.


I also think you are making a very obvious mistake wih the word comic. It is not the [funny or humorous] sans font; it is the [visually stylistic] font. It's manga sans, not Robin Williams sans.
The etymology is the same, as it happens. Or at least appears to have been. But that aside it's still demarcated as a comic typeface, in whatever sense you take comic to mean (I wasn't mistaken in my use of it, although I can see how that perception arose, etc.), and comic specifically, which sets out the context right in the name, unusually enough for a modern typeface really. That it's comic books rather than comedians makes it less inherently a "funny" typeface, but it doesn't make it less inappropriate for formal communication, any more than including any other comic conventions in a formal communication would be.

"I regret to inform you that your father was struck by a car this morning. KAPOW!" (Sorry, the idea just amused me too much not to say it...)


And the CS Lewis quote... That irritates me. Not the quote, the situation here. Rather than be upset, I think it'll be more productive to explain why I would be upset.

My use of adult and child for the thread, both in tone and language. The use of a quote from an author, an appeal to authority, would normally make sense. But you are discarding the context of the conversation we've all been having in order to make an unrelated point seemingly at my expense. I know the nature of adult and child, I know the quote, I know the problems with feeling that childish = bad, and now I am in a position where I either have to seemingly accept the wisdom provided (that I didn't need) or defend myself from an insinuated accusation of not being clever enough, and it just leaves me with this poorly articulated ball of frustration in my belly. I mean, did I somehow give the impression that I think children are bad? Have I not comported myself with more open-mindedness than this in the past? Where did I go wrong that it seems good to correct me on something so small as a word choice that's specifically using someone else's words to ask them why they picked those words and what they mean?

I dunno. It feels condescending but I know you weren't being condescending. My instinct is to talk about it for resolution but we don't even know each other. This will probably come across as angry instead of just confused and frustrated.
Yeah, to be honest I just enjoy deploying that quote, since when I discovered it a few years ago it summed up an attitude I'd long held but been unable to express articulately. In any case, I do think the attitude that "childish things have no place in the adult world" is worth challenging at every opportunity, largely irrespective of the specific context in which that phrase (or equivalent) appears, because I think it's inherently harmful, and, worse, just plain dull.

I was also amused that we appeared to start from opposite principles and yet have reached opposite conclusions (or at least that I had reached that conclusion intuitively, and you were requesting explanation) despite the stated principles theoretically leading more appropriately to the opposite position.

What I would say/accept is that if you replace "adult" with "formal" in your original statement, I agree with it wholeheartedly. There is a time and a place for childishness and it's basically everywhere that isn't formal. However I wouldn't accept the implied "adult=formal" correlation, not least because children have formal stuff too. And it wasn't clear, in your original post, whether that was in fact what you meant, or whether it was the (widespread) blanket approach that "adults being childish = bad". In which case it segues to a different conversation, and it's about discussing why Comic Sans is perceived as childish, rather than why Comic Sans is inappropriate - a small distinction but a significant one, especially when you disagree with the starting presumption ("childish=bad") but believe that it's inappropriate all the same.

Edit: has anyone else noticed in the post window the standard sans font (is it Tahoma or Verdana?) is starting to look decidedly... Comic, as this conversation goes on?

[FinnLassie]

Edit: has anyone else noticed in the post window the standard sans font (is it Tahoma or Verdana?) is starting to look decidedly... Comic, as this conversation goes on?

What are you talking about. There is nothing comic here. All serious business.

[Razanir]

What are you talking about. There is nothing comic here. All serious business.

Ah, Courier New. Most famous monospaced font. Would I ever use it for serious business? Technically yes, but only because I program in these fonts.

[Flickerdart]

Comic Sans is a garbage typeface that was poorly converted from a raster typeface that wasn't great even then, and then became overused much to the irritation of anyone who's ever heard of typography. If you absolutely positively need a childish hand-drawn typeface, use Comic Neue (http://comicneue.com/) (install the replacer (https://github.com/niutech/comic-sans-replacer) to automatically swap Comic Sans instances for Comic Neue). If not, use a real typeface.

[CynicalAvocado]

comic sans is fine in my book

papyrus and jokerman, on the other hand...

[Icewraith]

There's an immediate problem with this explanation; you're making a value judgement, using subjective descriptions, and then leaving them to be challenged. What's wrong with a clown costume? Clowns are not inherently off, or funny, or nonserious. I've seen some damned serious and downright dignified clowns. Watch cirque su soleil stuff, you'll see it too.

I also think you are making a very obvious mistake wih the word comic. It is not the [funny or humorous] sans font; it is the [visually stylistic] font. It's manga sans, not Robin Williams sans.

And the CS Lewis quote... That irritates me. Not the quote, the situation here. Rather than be upset, I think it'll be more productive to explain why I would be upset.

My use of adult and child for the thread, both in tone and language. The use of a quote from an author, an appeal to authority, would normally make sense. But you are discarding the context of the conversation we've all been having in order to make an unrelated point seemingly at my expense. I know the nature of adult and child, I know the quote, I know the problems with feeling that childish = bad, and now I am in a position where I either have to seemingly accept the wisdom provided (that I didn't need) or defend myself from an insinuated accusation of not being clever enough, and it just leaves me with this poorly articulated ball of frustration in my belly. I mean, did I somehow give the impression that I think children are bad? Have I not comported myself with more open-mindedness than this in the past? Where did I go wrong that it seems good to correct me on something so small as a word choice that's specifically using someone else's words to ask them why they picked those words and what they mean?

I dunno. It feels condescending but I know you weren't being condescending. My instinct is to talk about it for resolution but we don't even know each other. This will probably come across as angry instead of just confused and frustrated.




http://i1229.photobucket.com/albums/ee468/WizardPony/examples/620D5C79-2CCF-4BFF-B4B3-A54F32BDEEA6.png


Although, presumably, being a sentient creature of at least the forum minimum 13 years old and being Internet proficient, I have seen the Comic Sans don't in use prior and still feel asking the question is worthwhile, which means demonstration has not made it clear in the past, which means continued demonstration instead of an articulate answer isn't going to make things clearer by any stretch.



That makes more sense. Being a proud nail and intimating a severe misread of the situation on part of the user is a much clearer explanation.

It's in Comic Sans and Impact on my screen. If you have alternate fonts disabled or something you're missing part of the context of several of the posts in this thread, including the OP.

[Asta Kask]

There's an immediate problem with this explanation; you're making a value judgement, using subjective descriptions, and then leaving them to be challenged. What's wrong with a clown costume? Clowns are not inherently off, or funny, or nonserious. I've seen some damned serious and downright dignified clowns. Watch cirque su soleil stuff, you'll see it too.

I disagree. Clown faces are inherently scary. Seriously, they scare the living crap out of me.

[FinnLassie]

It's in Comic Sans and Impact on my screen. If you have alternate fonts disabled or something you're missing part of the context of several of the posts in this thread, including the OP.

Mobile version doesn't really recognise different fonts too swell.

[Zrak]

Learning that people have a hard time reading comic sans makes me feel like some kind of reading superhero. I usually do okay with metal band logos, those poor people must get dizzy and eventually puke up words Paranoia Agent-style if they try and read cursive.

[Haruki-kun]

comic sans is fine in my book

papyrus and jokerman, on the other hand...

IMO Jokerman is the worst. Comic Sans has its place, but Jokerman.... *shudders*

[Winter_Wolf]

Well, reading the first two posts in this thread made me want to gouge out my own eyes because it was painful trying to read a block of it. I doubt I'd even notice it if it were limited to a line or two here and there. In fact when used in its natural environment (comics, graphic novels, manga) it has its certain charm. If I were given a novel written in comic sans I'm pretty sure I'd have to restrain the impulse to use the book to slap the giver across the head with it.

I plead guilty to liking papyrus font (to a certain extent). It didn't really become a thing in the US until after I was overseas, so I didn't get supersaturated with it at the same pace as the haters. But if I want something actually readable in the Latin alphabet I'll stick to Times New Roman or Arial.

[Aedilred]

I plead guilty to liking papyrus font (to a certain extent). It didn't really become a thing in the US until after I was overseas, so I didn't get supersaturated with it at the same pace as the haters. But if I want something actually readable in the Latin alphabet I'll stick to Times New Roman or Arial.
I'm not a particular fan of TNR. I can't quite put my finger on it, but there's just something about it. Maybe it feels too serious; it certainly feels a bit square. I prefer Garamond or Bembo, but I'd take Baskerville or Georgia over TNR. A friend of mine actually blames his not doing as well on his uni dissertation as he feels he should have on being obliged to submit it in TNR rather than a typeface of his choosing (not entirely seriously, but you can tell he's annoyed several years on).

And Arial's just a rip-off of Helvetica :smallwink: If a sans serif font is necessary, I do prefer Tahoma, Verdana and Calibri for writing extensively, though.

[Domino Quartz]

VSauce has an interesting video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUCcObwIsOs) on this topic. As for my opinion...I don't really like Comic Sans. Not because some authority said so, but because it looks wrong to me in most contexts that it's used in. I wouldn't have been able to put my finger on exactly what makes it look wrong before I watched VSauce's video on the topic, but the host explains pretty well why some people find that it looks wrong. One of those (and I take it as my reason) is that it's not straight and regular like a more "formal" (for lack of a better word) font, and yet it's not flowing or natural like actual handwriting.

[shadow_archmagi]

Comic Sans opposes net neutrality.

[Asta Kask]

That is however, completely, irrelevant when it comes to the artistic merits of the font.

[pendell]

... where are these people who use comic sans inappropriately? I've been using computers for correspondence since 1990, and I have NEVER seen Comic Sans used in any university or professional context. Back in the 90s I saw a lot of Times Roman, Times New Roman, and a bit of courier for coding. Then sometime around 2000 or so Arial became popular and seems to be the default.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Traab]

... where are these people who use comic sans inappropriately? I've been using computers for correspondence since 1990, and I have NEVER seen Comic Sans used in any university or professional context. Back in the 90s I saw a lot of Times Roman, Times New Roman, and a bit of courier for coding. Then sometime around 2000 or so Arial became popular and seems to be the default.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

If you read Clients From Hell, you will see a lot of people demanding their website be done in comic sans. Though I get the feeling thats because they have actually HEARD of comic sans, and are trying to sound like they know what they are talking about. Its honestly amusing to me how far people will go to try and bluff their way through a technical meeting of some sort they have no real knowledge on. They would get a lot more respect if they just flat out said, "I dont know anything about this stuff, walk me through my options and I will tell you what I like." Rather than throwing out a dozen misused buzzwords trying to pretend you have any idea what the job entails and arguing with the expert when he tells you something cant be done. "I dont see the problem, you HAVE photoshop, so just rotate the picture around so we can see the guys face instead of the back of his head!"

[Aedilred]

... where are these people who use comic sans inappropriately?
Here (http://petapixel.com/2013/03/01/virtual-photo-album-for-ex-pope-benedict-xvi-mocked-over-comic-sans/) are (http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/08/cleveland-cavs-owner-letter-lebron/) two examples from the Wikipedia page.


http://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m12a6oTSXN1rs2h1co1_500.jpg

http://www.digitalfilmtree.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/cs.jpg

http://33.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m13700gYJP1rs2h1co1_400.jpg

[Haruki-kun]

I might be crazy, but that tombstone has a certain charm in Comic Sans... the others were awful.


I'm not a particular fan of TNR. I can't quite put my finger on it, but there's just something about it. Maybe it feels too serious; it certainly feels a bit square.

Well, it was supposed to be used to print The Times (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_New_Roman). I wouldn't use it for much else.


And Arial's just a rip-off of Helvetica :smallwink:

It arguably is, but Helvetica costs money. Arial comes with my OS for free. :smallfrown:

[Aedilred]

It arguably is, but Helvetica costs money. Arial comes with my OS for free. :smallfrown:

Which is why it was developed in the first place, of course, its being cheaper (on that sort of scale) to rip a typeface off than to pay to license an existing one.

I think among true typographic and design (snob) circles Arial is actually hated more than Comic Sans, albeit for different reasons.

[CynicalAvocado]

Trebuchet is my preferred font

[SiuiS]

Here (http://petapixel.com/2013/03/01/virtual-photo-album-for-ex-pope-benedict-xvi-mocked-over-comic-sans/) are (http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/08/cleveland-cavs-owner-letter-lebron/) two examples from the Wikipedia page.


http://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m12a6oTSXN1rs2h1co1_500.jpg

http://www.digitalfilmtree.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/cs.jpg

http://33.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m13700gYJP1rs2h1co1_400.jpg

Only the first one is a problem, and then because of the spacing and the implied grammar issues. The others are readable, large and do the job of being letters placed in sequence to trigger messages based on language in the observer's brain. As intended.

[Aedilred]

Trebuchet is my preferred font

I don't think it's wise to have a preferred typeface in all contexts, unless you're a business trying to build a strong corporate image (and even then, you can get away with changing it, as IKEA did). After all, different typefaces exist for a reason. I believe received wisdom is that serif fonts are better in print and sans fonts better on screen, although iirc studies tend to show people find it easier to read more familiar styles irrespective of what those styles are (historic documents are often hard to read now because of the hand or type used: indeed in Germany blackletter was widely considered more legible well into the 20th century).

Then there are other considerations like headers vs body text. I worked for a company that insisted on Century Gothic for everything, and while it looked ok most of the time there were occasions I thought "you know, this could look a lot better if we used a different typeface..." After all, Comic Sans itself came about because of the inappropriate ubiquity of Times New Roman.

I'm by no means a design expert nor do I get the opportunity to stretch my aesthetic legs in too many fields, but I do have a selection of typefaces that are my go-to ones whenever I'm starting a new project. For fantasy-style labelling and legends my starting-point is Dominican or Dominican Italic, although I mix it up depending on the map. But I don't think it works well for body text (WFRP2 was written almost entirely in it, and looks weird). I love Garamond and Bembo and tend to use one or the other for printed documents or novella pdfs but wouldn't put them in, say, a spreadsheet - for that I usually use Tahoma. For email, usually Calibri, as is standard these days. For a large sign I'd try to find something thematically appropriate but otherwise probably start with Futura or Helvetica. I'd even consider Comic Sans if I were, well, lettering a comic (not that it's likely) although if tempted I'd use Comic Neue instead.

I've got no idea what I'd use Papyrus for. But I don't actually have that much of a problem with it.

[noparlpf]

As stated, Comic Sans is hard to read in smallish print. It's also very inefficient to print. It uses a lot more ink than Times New Roman, Arial, or Garamond. (I forgot what that other font that's popular for essays lately is. Starts with a 'c' or something.)

[ORione]

As stated, Comic Sans is hard to read in smallish print. It's also very inefficient to print. It uses a lot more ink than Times New Roman, Arial, or Garamond. (I forgot what that other font that's popular for essays lately is. Starts with a 'c' or something.)

Calibri? Cambria?

[Haruki-kun]

I've got no idea what I'd use Papyrus for. But I don't actually have that much of a problem with it.

Originally I would have used it if I wanted to write something that looked ancient-themed. But Papyrus became the "Avatar Font" when the film was released, so now I don't think I could use it like that.

[noparlpf]

Calibri? Cambria?

Yeah, Calibri. I never use it so I forgot.

[Beleriphon]

Also, it shouldn't be used for big blocks of text. It's harder to read a block of Comic Sans than a block of Arial.

It also has pretty bad kerning most of the time, and it doens't even look like the hand lettered comic book its supposed to emulate.

[Asta Kask]

Only the first one is a problem, and then because of the spacing and the implied grammar issues. The others are readable, large and do the job of being letters placed in sequence to trigger messages based on language in the observer's brain. As intended.

And one of the messages triggered is "I'm the kind of person who would use Comic Sans." There are implications of ignorance there.

[Flickerdart]

Only the first one is a problem, and then because of the spacing and the implied grammar issues. The others are readable, large and do the job of being letters placed in sequence to trigger messages based on language in the observer's brain. As intended.
By that metric, a Cadillac and a Lada are both "boxes with wheels and an engine that get people where they want to go." And yet one is a luxury brand, and the other is a piece of crap.

[Aedilred]

By that metric, a Cadillac and a Lada are both "boxes with wheels and an engine that get people where they want to go." And yet one is a luxury brand, and the other is a piece of crap.

Yeah: that something fulfils the minimum requirements to be considered what it purports to be (in this case a typeface) has no bearing on the relative quality of it compared to other things that also meet the same minimum requirements. The Star Wars Holiday Special meets the minimum requirements for a feature film. That doesn't imply that it's a good film.

Any other legible typeface, of which there are thousands, would fulfil the specifications of being "readable, large letters placed in sequence to trigger messages based on language in the observer's brain." That Comic Sans is legible is not a reason to select it over and above any of those others, and there are various reasons (like the specific messages triggered, as mentioned) why it is less appropriate than a very large number of those others.

[Rodin]

Calibri? Cambria?

Calibri is the default Microsoft Office font these days. Why they swapped from TNR, I'm not terribly sure.


Ah, Courier New. Most famous monospaced font. Would I ever use it for serious business? Technically yes, but only because I program in these fonts.

Courier New being monospaced makes it very handy for formatting data when you don't want to go through the trouble of running it through Excel or other such programs. Useful for dishing out numbers to management types mostly.

[CynicalAvocado]

I don't think it's wise to have a preferred typeface in all contexts, unless you're a business trying to build a strong corporate image (and even then, you can get away with changing it, as IKEA did). After all, different typefaces exist for a reason. I believe received wisdom is that serif fonts are better in print and sans fonts better on screen, although iirc studies tend to show people find it easier to read more familiar styles irrespective of what those styles are (historic documents are often hard to read now because of the hand or type used: indeed in Germany blackletter was widely considered more legible well into the 20th century).

i meant preferred as in if i'm conducting personal communication-ing with someone, or writing nots on my computer then i'm going to use Trebuchet

[SiuiS]

By that metric, a Cadillac and a Lada are both "boxes with wheels and an engine that get people where they want to go." And yet one is a luxury brand, and the other is a piece of crap.

There are actual reasons one of those is a luxury brand, including actual effort from the company, quality of worksmanship in the physical product, and monetary cost. Comic sans and other fonts do not have this. The reasons given for the tombstone being bad is 'since I know comic sans is bad, and this is comic sans, this is bad, no other reason'. Which is less a reason it's bad, and more prejudice.

[Flickerdart]

There are actual reasons one of those is a luxury brand, including actual effort from the company, quality of worksmanship in the physical product, and monetary cost. Comic sans and other fonts do not have this.
Today I learned that typefaces aren't designed by anyone, least of all companies, least of all for money, and just appear in a pumpkin patch.

If you think there's no craftsmanship to typography, you're quite simply wrong. There are no two ways about it.

[Aedilred]

There are actual reasons one of those is a luxury brand, including actual effort from the company, quality of worksmanship in the physical product, and monetary cost. Comic sans and other fonts do not have this.
Yeah, this... isn't really the case, as Flickerdart has implied. There are people who make their livelihoods designing typefaces. Successful typefaces are also often really expensive, which is why cloned fonts are a thing, and why Arial exists at all. Some of the oldest and most venerable typefaces are still known by the name of the guy who designed them. That's not something you get in a field where artistry and workmanship are unimportant. I could, if the mood struck me, knock out a typeface myself on my computer and distribute it. It probably wouldn't be any good, though.

Even if you genuinely believe that all typefaces are aesthetically value-neutral so long as they're legible, which I think is an extremely minority view among those who've given any thought to the subject, there's then no reason to pick any legible typeface above any other, in which case the chances of picking Comic Sans from the thousands of legible typefaces out there are negligible, in which case it still needs to be called into question why its use is so widespread in comparison to other typefaces.


The reasons given for the tombstone being bad is 'since I know comic sans is bad, and this is comic sans, this is bad, no other reason'. Which is less a reason it's bad, and more prejudice.
It's because Comic Sans has a certain conotation - one which I would reiterate it was specifically designed to have - which makes it inappropriate for that situation.

[Excession]

Calibri is the default Microsoft Office font these days. Why they swapped from TNR, I'm not terribly sure.

Cambria and Calibri and their cousins were designed to look very good on screen, and good on paper. They look good together on a page because they share enough common elements, despite being serif and sans-serif. TNR meanwhile was designed to be printed on cheap newsprint using lead letters. On higher quality printers and papers, and on screen, it suffers from reduced legibility. It is perhaps a testament to the quality of the font that it still works reasonably well after all these years and changes in media. Arial is cheap knock-off, and for people that notice that sort of thing, it shows.


Courier New being monospaced makes it very handy for formatting data when you don't want to go through the trouble of running it through Excel or other such programs. Useful for dishing out numbers to management types mostly.

Consolas is the monospaced cousin of Cambria and Calibri. I find it more legible than Courier New, and better for programming in particular. This is unsurprising, because it's precisely what Consolas was designed to be. It's avoidance of homogplyphs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homoglyph) makes me especially happy: i, l, I, O and 0 are all easy to tell apart. The presence of a real italic form (look at that f!) is even better.

\end{fontgeek}

[Flickerdart]

Monospaced italic? The mandatory loose tracking makes me weep.

[SiuiS]

Today I learned that typefaces aren't designed by anyone, least of all companies, least of all for money, and just appear in a pumpkin patch.

{{scrubbed}}


If you think there's no craftsmanship to typography, you're quite simply wrong. There are no two ways about it.

Let's look at this again, then. Three examples of 'comic sans is like, totes terrible, y'know?' Were given. Only one is terrible, and would be equally terrible in other fonts. I said these examples are bad examples because they do not showcase why comic sans is objectively bad; it does what it is designed to do and also does not do the bad things this thread claimed it would do.

You respond with a thing about Cadillacs being boxes on wheels. I tell you that someone went out of their way to make Cadillacs into something more than a vehicle, whereas comic sans is being derided for failing as a font; one beig luxurious does not equate to the other being subpar.

Telling me fonts are designed to have purpose and make money is irrelevant and doesn't function off of what has already new said at all. Unless you think vehicles which are not Cadillacs should only be driven on some roads at some times in the proper context and are objectively bad on the road at any other time, you've failed to make an actual point.



Even if you genuinely believe that all typefaces are aesthetically value-neutral so long as they're legible, which I think is an extremely minority view among those who've given any thought to the subject, there's then no reason to pick any legible typeface above any other, in which case the chances of picking Comic Sans from the thousands of legible typefaces out there are negligible, in which case it still needs to be called into question why its use is so widespread in comparison to other typefaces.

That's easy. Social pressure. People do things because they think those things will bestow value on them. What other interpretation of "using comic sans because it's hip to the jive" is there?

If your argument is based on humans not doing things often with the sole purpose of inpressing other humans in illogical and irrational ways, I have some terrible news for you that will probably make you sad.



It's because Comic Sans has a certain conotation - one which I would reiterate it was specifically designed to have - which makes it inappropriate for that situation.

How so?
The connotation of informality on the medical invoice is potentially bad, but looks designed for legibility, probably due to senior clientele. The tombstone doesn't seem like it's an inappropriate connotation at all – it's not about you and how sad and somber death is to you, it's about reflecting the obviously upbeat person interred beneath.

But of course, comic sans is bad so these are bad, even if there's no reason for them to be bad other than because comics sans was used.

[Aedilred]

You are terrible at literacy then, as none of that was In My post.

Let's look at this again, then. Three examples of 'comic sans is like, totes terrible, y'know?' Were given. Only one is terrible, and would be equally terrible in other fonts. I said these examples are bad examples because they do not showcase why comic sans is objectively bad; it does what it is designed to do and also does not do the bad things this thread claimed it would do.

You respond with a thing about Cadillacs being boxes on wheels. I tell you that someone went out of their way to make Cadillacs into something more than a vehicle, whereas comic sans is being derided for failing as a font; one beig luxurious does not equate to the other being subpar.

Telling me fonts are designed to have purpose and make money is irrelevant and doesn't function off of what has already new said at all. Unless you think vehicles which are not Cadillacs should only be driven on some roads at some times in the proper context and are objectively bad on the road at any other time, you've failed to make an actual point.

That's easy. Social pressure. People do things because they think those things will bestow value on them. What other interpretation of "using comic sans because it's hip to the jive" is there?

How so?
The connotation of informality on the medical invoice is potentially bad, but looks designed for legibility, probably due to senior clientele...
It's a funeral expenses invoice, as it happens, so the legibility thing seems not to be working out.


...But of course, comic sans is bad so these are bad, even if there's no reason for them to be bad other than because comics sans was used.
Your argument appears to be that legible typefaces are entirely interchangeable and all equally appropriate for any given instance.

And, by extension, that any aesthetic choice made under any circumstances and in any context is equally appropriate since it's all entirely subjective and the only reason to object is based on circular reasoning, so long as the item in question fulfils the minimum functions to be considered operational. Further, that social pressure is the only reason to prefer one particular aesthetic choice to another and that disagreement with that preference is unreasonable.

Assuming this isn't just trolling people who are overly precious about typefaces (which, to be fair, I do find amusing), then, given that this is a point of view with which I entirely disagree, I don't think there's any point continuing to debate it.

[AtomicKitKat]

*snipped for space*

Nope. Not seeing it. I personally use Times New Roman for formal writing, and Arial for more light-hearted text myself, but as far as I'm concerned with the above, I'm more concerned with the content of the letter, than what font it's written in. In fact, I'd be more concerned with typos and grammatical errors as well as incorrect usage of idioms and phrases(eg. "could care less" instead of the proper "could not care less").

But maybe that's just me.


Only the first one is a problem, and then because of the spacing and the implied grammar issues. The others are readable, large and do the job of being letters placed in sequence to trigger messages based on language in the observer's brain. As intended.

Indeed. The cops should pretty much never be using anything besides TNR or any other "formal" text. The funeral home, well, unless you're one of the folks who just hate stuff written in Comic Sans because it's written in Comic Sans, there should be no problem.

I think I just figured out the problem. 99 times out of 100, if you show something written in CS to someone, they're not likely to realise or recognise that it's written in CS. Heck, you could show them anything written in any font, and they probably couldn't tell you the font used. The 1 out of 100 would be the self-proclaimed "experts" on what's good and what's not. The ones who constantly bash Comic Sans because they read about how it's terrible in its ubiquitousness somewhere on the Internet.

[SiuiS]

It's a funeral expenses invoice, as it happens, so the legibility thing seems not to be working out.


Aedilred, are you seriously implying that legibility on a funerary invoice is a waste of effort, while at the same time forgetting that the living are the ones who read it and that if it was for the deceased then it could be comic sans without a problem or even dingbats without a problems?




I think I just figured out the problem. 99 times out of 100, if you show something written in CS to someone, they're not likely to realise or recognise that it's written in CS. Heck, you could show them anything written in any font, and they probably couldn't tell you the font used. The 1 out of 100 would be the self-proclaimed "experts" on what's good and what's not. The ones who constantly bash Comic Sans because they read about how it's terrible in its ubiquitousness somewhere on the Internet.

Indeed. As we've seen, there are legitimate reasons for comic sans to be bad. But it is bad in those contexts and normal elsewhere, rather than bad all the time except for sometimes.

[Excession]

But maybe that's just me.
It may well be. Different people perceive fonts, and nearly everything else, differently. The danger is assuming that everyone perceives things exactly like you do.

There has been real research done in this area. I found this (http://usabilitynews.org/the-effect-of-website-typeface-appropriateness-on-the-perception-of-a-companys-ethos/) as a starting point, but I'm sure there are lots more out there. And I think once someone has a doctorate and published papers, they aren't "self-proclaimed" any more.

[Gwynfrid]

I remember coming across Comic Sans MS for the first time with Windows 95. I immediately liked it, on the grounds that it was the only not-boring font in the entire package. It was actually the first not-boring font I had ever encountered, since I started using software that was capable of managing more than one. It looked nicely done, with rounded shapes and a kind of handwritten, but still clean look to it (well, as clean as handwriting goes, especially mine). I used it to great effect for writing things like party invitations, jokes pinned to the wall, etc. I found that it wasn't so easy to read or nice to look at when used in long text or smaller size, so I stuck to Arial for the more extensive pieces of writing or business-minded Powerpoint stuff and continued to use Comic Sans MS for lighter fare.

Years later, I found that everybody had begun to hate it, and it took me a while to figure out why. It's been overused, for sure. But many other fonts are used more. Comic Sans, somehow, has become more prominently (in)famous than any other. I'd like to venture a guess: Compared to others, Comic Sans is much more easily recognized by non-experts. Way back then, it stood out in the list of fonts in the Win95 package, and it still stands out today among the standard options everybody sees in daily life. Being highly visible, it got tired quickly, any misuse was noticed and mocked, and the bad PR snowballed. Its inherent qualities, or lack thereof, are of little importance. Only font afficionados are able to explain why is is objectively a poor design choice, and, to be honest, their arguments usually feel way too technical, even esoteric to me. So, the rejection is kind of a mark of intellectual status: Despising Comic Sans is cool, no matter what the rationale behind that is. I bet you wouldn't get any really long threads, or magazine articles (http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/09/22/comic_sans_defense_the_font_everyone_mocks_is_fine .html) to discuss any single other font with such passion.

[Azurefenrir]

I don't know if anyone still remembers Microsoft Comic Chat (and all the really bad stuff that came with it), but every time I see Comic Sans I'm reminded of it. That probably contributed to my annoyance at the font.

http://i.imgur.com/1dKcean.png

[Aedilred]

Aedilred, are you seriously implying that legibility on a funerary invoice is a waste of effort, while at the same time forgetting that the living are the ones who read it and that if it was for the deceased then it could be comic sans without a problem or even dingbats without a problems?

No: the point was rather that despite its being purportedly designed for legibility you had managed to misread it.

[Flickerdart]

it does what it is designed to do
No, it doesn't - it was designed as raster type, and didn't survive the transition to vectors well at all. By any typographic standards, it is a hideous and malformed typeface. At the risk of appeal to authority, this is actually something I have a degree in, and there are many many reasons (from uneven weight to poor legibility and readability to lousy kerning) that Comic Sans is not just bad in some contexts but a bad typeface, period.

[Gwynfrid]

No, it doesn't - it was designed as raster type, and didn't survive the transition to vectors well at all. By any typographic standards, it is a hideous and malformed typeface. At the risk of appeal to authority, this is actually something I have a degree in, and there are many many reasons (from uneven weight to poor legibility and readability to lousy kerning) that Comic Sans is not just bad in some contexts but a bad typeface, period.

Interesting. As an expert, do you see typeface design as a science? I always thought of it as more like art. It's difficult to assign a value of "'tis bad, period" to art, but of course it's not a problem if it is science.

[AtomicKitKat]

About the only aspect of the "It's bad" opinions that I can get behind, is that the font doesn't scale well(from personal experience as well). Otherwise, to me, it's "just a font".

[SiuiS]

No: the point was rather that despite its being purportedly designed for legibility you had managed to misremember it.

Oh me oh my, how dare I? I should routinely scrutinize the fine details of a written work even when a cursory scan is sufficient for the purposes it is to be an example for.

[Aedilred]

Oh me oh my, how dare I? I should routinely scrutinize the fine details of a written work even when a cursory scan is sufficient for the purposes it is to be an example for.

So... you read it in the morning and came back to post that evening or something? Or you forgot in the handful of seconds between reading my post and replying to it?

When you're making the specific argument that a given item is worthwhile because it is legible (or specifically, because it triggers messages based on language in the observer's brain), it's not rhetorically great then to proceed to misidentify something which has its nature printed pretty clearly on the example being given, because it suggests the wrong message has been triggered. Or perhaps, if not that the wrong message has been triggered, that you're more interested in asserting how right you are than in properly scrutinising the presented evidence.

Yes, it's very trivial. In this particular debate, given the stance you took, it's also a bit of a banana skin.

[Razanir]

Courier New being monospaced makes it very handy for formatting data when you don't want to go through the trouble of running it through Excel or other such programs. Useful for dishing out numbers to management types mostly.

I'm learning SAS in one class. This is the exact reason I prefer the terminal output to the HTML output. The monospaced font.


Consolas is the monospaced cousin of Cambria and Calibri. I find it more legible than Courier New, and better for programming in particular. This is unsurprising, because it's precisely what Consolas was designed to be. It's avoidance of homogplyphs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homoglyph) makes me especially happy: i, l, I, O and 0 are all easy to tell apart. The presence of a real italic form (look at that f!) is even better.

Yes, and I have something even more insane than monospaced italics. A monospaced Tengwar font.

[Aedilred]

Years later, I found that everybody had begun to hate it, and it took me a while to figure out why. It's been overused, for sure. But many other fonts are used more. Comic Sans, somehow, has become more prominently (in)famous than any other. I'd like to venture a guess: Compared to others, Comic Sans is much more easily recognized by non-experts.

I think this is certainly part of it. In design and typography circles I suspect Arial is probably more actively hated than Comic Sans, but Arial's also relatively non-obvious (compared to other (neo-)grotesque typefaces and in particular Helvetica, which it mimics). It's not hard to spot Arial over Helvetica once you know what you're looking for but most people don't even know where to start and since Helvetica's star burned brightest before personal computing really kicked off, it wouldn't surprise me to discover most people don't really know what it is anyway. Comic Sans on the other hand stands out a mile off, which makes it an accessible target.

There are good design reasons not to like it. Unlike Arial, I think there are relatively few reasons to dislike the principle behind it; its design was fundamentally honest, and it doesn't pretend to be anything it's not. And in fact of all the things to come out of the early 90s, aesthetically it's probably one of the less horrible. But even so, the discussions about kerning and regularity and so forth sound overly technical but do have a serious effect on the way it appears and are one of the reasons why it can be relatively hard to read in large text-blocks. It just looks messy, apart from anything else. It's not obvious at low sizes but if you blow up, for instance, the "m", the irregularity is enough to persuade many people to tear their hair out: it's just all over the place - and where you can get away with studied irregularity aesthetically, if you repeat that same irregularity as tends to happen in longer strings of characters, that starts to look really bad.

I would reiterate too that this isn't the fault of the designer, precisely. The chap who designed it was and is a reputable designer who knows what he's doing, indeed, has subsequently designed perfectly respectable typfefaces including Trebuchet, as it happens. The typeface just wasn't designed for use as a primary font in body text or for anything other than highly informal use where the technical issues would be less of a problem and the cutesy charm was more important. Comic Neue shows you can retain much of the feeling of Comic Sans while resulting in an objectively better typeface for a wider variety of situations, by cleaning it up a bit. It just isn't what Comic Sans is for and if it had been, it would probably have been designed differently in the first place.

I have actually heard a reason for using Comic Sans rather than almost any other generically available typeface: my mum, who's a primary school teacher, likes to use it because it was the only standard-issue typeface she was aware of with a single-storey lower case "a".

But most of the time it just gets used because it's popular, and because people are too lazy or ignorant to look for a better or more appropriate typeface. Timing plays a part in that popularity: like you say, Gwynfrid, at the time it first appeared it stood out from its fellows, probably a lot further than it would if it were introduced for the first time now. Novelty helped it see use, and that use spurred more use... and then it becomes circular - both use of it and negative reaction to it feed off its popularity and fuel it in both directions. So maybe the majority of people do only hate it because it's popular, but its popularity is itself most likely objectively undeserved and recursive anyway. It's a bit like the Paris Hilton of typefaces in that respect: nobody can quite explain how it became so widespread or famous, but it's here now and we can't get rid of it, and people are annoyed by that who wouldn't normally pay attention.

[Gwynfrid]

[snipped]

Thanks for the clear and thorough explanation. I knew about the concept of kerning, but now I can also claim knowledge of the term itself :smallsmile:

And I love your analogy with Paris Hilton, it's spot on.

[AtomicKitKat]

*plus nested quote from Aedilred above this post*
Thanks for the clear and thorough explanation. I knew about the concept of kerning, but now I can also claim knowledge of the term itself :smallsmile:

And I love your analogy with Paris Hilton, it's spot on.

But I actually *like* Comic Sans. :P

All this talk of kerning went over my head. I did test Comic Sans in MS Paint while reading your(Aedilred's) post. The M doesn't show up so much until you blow it up, but the upper-case A is very obviously "heftier" than all the other upper-case letters(typed it at size 48 though).

When printing out signs for the store I work at, I sometimes designed the letters myself(simplistic block lettering), to reduce the jpeg artifacts from expanding(as inevitably happened because I can never remember just how big to make something so it fits within an A4 sheet of paper).

[TandemChelipeds]

Ugliness of the font aside(which is a subjective issue), Comic Sans carries a lot of cultural baggage. It's generally perceived, especially by those who use it, as the "cute" or "funny" or "friendly" font, and for this reason, it's a terrible idea to use it for things like a flyer relating to sexual assault and rape. It appears to make light of the subject. I mean, it is funny, but not in the way the user intended.

[SiuiS]

So... you read it in the morning and came back to post that evening or something? Or you forgot in the handful of seconds between reading my post and replying to it?

You quoted the answer to this question in the post you asked this question. I find the irony of you chastising me for not reading thoroughly to be delicious.

[Aedilred]

You quoted the answer to this question in the post you asked this question. I find the irony of you chastising me for not reading thoroughly to be delicious.
Um, no I didn't? You said you'd misremembered it; I asked whether this misremembering happened over the space of several hours or the equivalent of between hearing a question and answering it. Nothing in your post answered the question...

...although the alternative, as the post I quoted actually stated, is that you didn't bother to read the "fine details" (i.e. the title) of the thing you were commenting on properly. In the same post in which you changed "misread" to "misremember" despite, given the subsequent content of your post, the former' actually being more appropriate.

There's no particular shame in misreading something, (although it doesn't look great when you're making an argument that the given thing you're misreading is perfectly legible). On the other hand, snarkily "correcting" someone else's vocabulary then responding in such a way as to suggest the original interpretation was right in the first place, then trying to assume the moral high ground, just seems like a waste of everyone's time.

[Flickerdart]

Interesting. As an expert, do you see typeface design as a science? I always thought of it as more like art. It's difficult to assign a value of "'tis bad, period" to art, but of course it's not a problem if it is science.
It's actually very easy to assign value to art, it's just judged on a slightly different metric (I have a significant background in cultural studies, don't get me started). But no, typography isn't art, even more than design isn't art. It's not exactly a science either, but there are a lot of human factors issues around reading, and that is a science.

Comic Sans is actually pretty decent for children (because the letterforms are more familiar to them due to the similarity with how they write themselves, including the single-story "a") and dyslexics (for some reason) but those are properties of the style (script - yes, Comic Sans is not actually a sans serif) rather than the execution.

[SiuiS]

Um, no I didn't? You said you'd misremembered it; I asked whether this misremembering happened over the space of several hours or the equivalent of between hearing a question and answering it. Nothing in your post answered the question...

...although the alternative, as the post I quoted actually stated, is that you didn't bother to read the "fine details" (i.e. the title) of the thing you were commenting on properly. In the same post in which you changed "misread" to "misremember" despite, given the subsequent content of your post, the former' actually being more appropriate.

There's no particular shame in misreading something, (although it doesn't look great when you're making an argument that the given thing you're misreading is perfectly legible). On the other hand, snarkily "correcting" someone else's vocabulary then responding in such a way as to suggest the original interpretation was right in the first place, then trying to assume the moral high ground, just seems like a waste of everyone's time.

Readability is a visual cue. I can assess readability (which was my point) without having to read the entire thing and remember exactly what it says (which has nothing to do with my point). I didn't misread or misremember, I did not have to read it to notice the visual structure was sufficient for the purpose I said it was for. My argument is that it works visually. Saying I need to read it better or I'm wasting your time is, literally, pixel bitching – it is saying I need an intimate understanding of the individually-nonrelevant components before I can say the whole fits an aesthetic. Which is wrong.

I also did not change a word from misread to misremember or the reverse, I don't believe. I try not to edit content like, ever. It's a thing. Spelling mistakes or iPhone autocorrect bloops, sure, but that's it.



Comic Sans is actually pretty decent for children (because the letterforms are more familiar to them due to the similarity with how they write themselves, including the single-story "a") and dyslexics (for some reason) but those are properties of the style (script - yes, Comic Sans is not actually a sans serif) rather than the execution.

I don't understand. How is differentiating style and execution a thing for a font?

[Aedilred]

Readability is a visual cue. I can assess readability (which was my point) without having to read the entire thing and remember exactly what it says (which has nothing to do with my point). I didn't misread or misremember, I did not have to read it to notice the visual structure was sufficient for the purpose I said it was for. My argument is that it works visually. Saying I need to read it better or I'm wasting your time is, literally, pixel bitching – it is saying I need an intimate understanding of the individually-nonrelevant components before I can say the whole fits an aesthetic. Which is wrong.
I'm giving myself a headache trying to work out the mental contortions to justify arguing that something is acceptable almost entirely because of its legibility without actually having read it, or at least not having read it correctly. "Yup, that's definitely a word thing you've got there".

I mean, fine, you can take that line if you want... but then what are you actually doing in the thread? I don't need to read your posts in this thread at this point to know I'm going to have a problem with them, but in order to respond to them directly and effectively, not to mention actually treat you with a degree of respect as a conversational partner, it's still a good idea for me to read them and try to interpret the evidence and argument presented rather than just see the avatar and start typing up a response.

And yes, this tangent is a ridiculous waste of my time, and I would have given it up several posts ago (at the point I suggested further conversation given your apparent position was pointless) were you not still trying to score points. For instance:

I also did not change a word from misread to misremember or the reverse, I don't believe. I try not to edit content like, ever. It's a thing. Spelling mistakes or iPhone autocorrect bloops, sure, but that's it.
Here you go:

No: the point was rather that despite its being purportedly designed for legibility you had managed to misread it.


No: the point was rather that despite its being purportedly designed for legibility you had managed to misremember it.Oh me oh my, how dare I? I should routinely scrutinize the fine details of a written work even when a cursory scan is sufficient for the purposes it is to be an example for.

[Lettuce]

Before this devolves too much, I have a request to those of you who are typographers: Can you explain, for all of us laymen, on exactly what criteria a font is properly judged? The idea of looking at something like Arial and recoiling in disgust and horror is entirely baffling to the point of near-comedy for most laymen that I know. For me personally, I find Arial completely inoffensive to the point of where I have no idea what aspect of it one COULD possibly object to; I also find it MORE pleasing to the eye and more legible than Helvetica, Tahoma, or Trebuchet; and vastly more so than Times New Roman. My favorite font to write in is probably Verdana. I used to type up my essays for school in Verdana and change them to TNR at the end because I hated looking TNR.

As an aside, I'm personally convinced that we always had to write those essays in TNR not because it was somehow the only font that "looked professional" (clearly it wasn't), but because it's so SMALL--easily the smallest of the typically-used "professional" fonts. A 4-paragraph essay in TNR is like 6 pages in Verdana, or 5 and a half in Trebuchet. They made us use TNR so we'd have to write more! :smalltongue: And I personally find TNR harder to read than Comic Sans. Something about it is somewhat glaze-y-eyes-inducing and I have just a little trouble with not accidentally rereading lines or losing my place.

On the subject of Comic Sans itself, I don't find it horrible. I agree with earlier posts that perhaps it's not entirely effortless to read in long, full blocks of text--but it's definitely no harder to read than TNR is for me. Visually, the curviness and smoothness of it is somewhat pleasing, and like Aedilred's mother, I like the look of the lowercase a. I even think Comic Sans doesn't necessarily needs to be confined to just comics, although I definitely wouldn't use it for any publications. But I do think it could be appropriate in other places--for example, a tongue-in-cheek reminder in a staff bathroom to wash one's hands, or in a casual restaurant's dinner menu (or maybe in the children's menu).

Also, I really like Gwynfrid's analysis of the situation. I think it's spot-on and I agree with everything said.

[Aedilred]

Before this devolves too much, I have a request to those of you who are typographers: Can you explain, for all of us laymen, on exactly what criteria a font is properly judged? The idea of looking at something like Arial and recoiling in disgust and horror is entirely baffling to the point of near-comedy for most laymen that I know. For me personally, I find Arial completely inoffensive to the point of where I have no idea what aspect of it one COULD possibly object to; I also find it MORE pleasing to the eye and more legible than Helvetica, Tahoma, or Trebuchet; and vastly more so than Times New Roman. My favorite font to write in is probably Verdana. I used to type up my essays for school in Verdana and change them to TNR at the end because I hated looking TNR.

As an aside, I'm personally convinced that we always had to write those essays in TNR not because it was somehow the only font that "looked professional" (clearly it wasn't), but because it's so SMALL--easily the smallest of the typically-used "professional" fonts. A 4-paragraph essay in TNR is like 6 pages in Verdana, or 5 and a half in Trebuchet. They made us use TNR so we'd have to write more! :smalltongue: And I personally find TNR harder to read than Comic Sans. Something about it is somewhat glaze-y-eyes-inducing and I have just a little trouble with not accidentally rereading lines or losing my place.

I'm not a typographer, just an interested layman, but I think a lot of it comes down to context. Arial isn't disliked so much because of what it looks like as because of the circumstances of its creation, and, particularly, because the personal computing revolution has made what in previous generations might well have remained perceived as a cheap knock-off one of the standard typefaces. This website (http://www.marksimonson.com/notebook/view/the-scourge-of-arial) sums up the common arguments against Arial. I present it without comment: you're free to agree or disagree with them as you see fit.

It's difficult to come up with an objective quality measure (and I'll leave that to Flickerdart) but the key concerns are legibility and readability. Various studies have been done on which are better from this perspective and few absolutely concrete conclusions have been reached, but consistency, regularity and kerning are all concerns. The "feel" of a typeface is obviously largely subjective, but there are nevertheless accepted principles when it comes to that: in the Anglosphere at least, serif fonts tend to look more formal and traditional, sans serifs more modern, blackletter more kitsch, and so on.

When it comes to indiscriminate use of Comic Sans, there are question-marks over a lot of these: the kerning is barely adequate, the letters are almost completely irregular, and the tone has already been discussed - but it's worth pointing out again that it was designed for use in a children's program because the designer thought it was inappropriate to have such characters speaking in TNR. (The raster/vector distinction is another one worth noting, as it affects scaling - if you blow Comic Sans up to size 48 or so on your PC, all those smooth lines become rather jagged).

(Incidentally, I largely agree about TNR; I'm not a fan either, although as mentioned previously in the thread, again that's partly down to misuse - it was designed for low-quality newsprint, not for digital display or higher-quality printing).

Before the 1980s, typefaces were largely removed from laypersons' concern anyway and their use and recognition limited to a relatively small, expert community of typesetters and designers. This is one of the reasons too why Comic Sans has become so prevalent and so hated in a way so few typefaces previously had; they're now available to everyone to use, abuse - and recognise - and as it happens, this revolution coincided with two decades in which it's now widely perceived that taste took a holiday, and since "the people" tend to be more conservative en masse than artistic communities, we're still living with the consequences of that. If Comic Sans had been a brief fad, it would probably by now have retro appeal, but it's never gone away. Imagine if Crazy Frog were still around... and then, that it had been around for twice that long.

As much as anything, it's just one of the features of the modern computer age. If you make technology available to everyone, it's going to be abused, and the debate is just over what you consider to be abuse. People videoing their TV screen and posting it on YouTube, sharing #aftersex selfies on Twitter, using Comic Sans in job applications, at heart it's all essentially coming from the same place: people using things in a way that weren't intended and which some people (in whatever proportion) find aggravating.

[Gwynfrid]

But I actually *like* Comic Sans. :P

Me too. I might still use it for its own merits, for example if I wanted to write an invitation to a kids' party and had no time to think of something more imaginative. In fact the only reason not to use it in that kind of context is how banal it's become, due to overuse.


It's actually very easy to assign value to art, it's just judged on a slightly different metric (I have a significant background in cultural studies, don't get me started). But no, typography isn't art, even more than design isn't art. It's not exactly a science either, but there are a lot of human factors issues around reading, and that is a science.

Sorry - this feels a little too much like an argument of authority. For the sake of not getting you started, I will simply say I neither agree or disagree with that opinion, and leave it at that.


I even think Comic Sans doesn't necessarily needs to be confined to just comics, although I definitely wouldn't use it for any publications. But I do think it could be appropriate in other places--for example, a tongue-in-cheek reminder in a staff bathroom to wash one's hands, or in a casual restaurant's dinner menu (or maybe in the children's menu).
I agree.


Also, I really like Gwynfrid's analysis of the situation. I think it's spot-on and I agree with everything said.
Thanks for the kind words. :smallsmile:


[snip]
As much as anything, it's just one of the features of the modern computer age. If you make technology available to everyone, it's going to be abused, and the debate is just over what you consider to be abuse. People videoing their TV screen and posting it on YouTube, sharing #aftersex selfies on Twitter, using Comic Sans in job applications, at heart it's all essentially coming from the same place: people using things in a way that weren't intended and which some people (in whatever proportion) find aggravating.
Thanks for the thoughtful explanation and the pointer to the case against Arial. Your conclusion makes a lot of sense. The typeface experts' annoyance is understandable, and similar to the reaction of experts in other fields (writers and fanfiction, audiophiles and MP3 are examples). When it's expressed a little too snugly it can be annoying... I appreciate the pains you took both to become knowledgeable and to share your findings with us in understandable language.

[noparlpf]

As an aside, I'm personally convinced that we always had to write those essays in TNR not because it was somehow the only font that "looked professional" (clearly it wasn't), but because it's so SMALL--easily the smallest of the typically-used "professional" fonts. A 4-paragraph essay in TNR is like 6 pages in Verdana, or 5 and a half in Trebuchet. They made us use TNR so we'd have to write more! :smalltongue: And I personally find TNR harder to read than Comic Sans. Something about it is somewhat glaze-y-eyes-inducing and I have just a little trouble with not accidentally rereading lines or losing my place.

Garamond is smaller, but I suppose it's not nearly as commonly used. Heck, OpenOffice apparently doesn't even have it in the default pack. I used to use Garamond a lot, though.

Arial is only very slightly bigger than Times New Roman, and it's the one I typically use because it's so generic-looking.

[SiuiS]

I'm giving myself a headache trying to work out the mental contortions to justify arguing that something is acceptable almost entirely because of its legibility without actually having read it, or at least not having read it correctly. "Yup, that's definitely a word thing you've got there".

There are no contortions involved. You simply are operating on a binary; something is or is not X. I'm saying X doesn't need to be taken into account at this level of abstraction.



Here you go:

Aha. I assumed you meant I edited my own words. No, that was a correction, not just a change. You assume I misread something; I did not. In fact, the detail you are trying to call me on missing is not in any way relevant to the discussion of whether the item was readable and succeeded at being readable.

Really, I am more confused by your insistence that a funerary invoice being spoken of in specific terms rather than broad terms is at all relevant to how readable comic sans is in general.

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

I think Comic Sans is just overused. I'm not a professional-quality graphic designer, but to my eye, it doesn't seem inherently bad. This is actually a compliment, since most fonts should never be used ever.

[TypoNinja]

Its just popular to bash on it. Does it have issues? Sure, in egregious amounts compared to other subjects to justify the hatred? Nope.

Has it been over used? Oh probably, but like Vsauce said this is not a failing of the font, its a failing of the people using it. Some people like their steak well done, this is not a failing of steak, those people are just terrible human beings. Hating a font because stupid people misuse it is like hating Ford because drunk drivers are a thing. If a moron does something stupid we blame the moron not the inanimate object he misused.

Speaking of the Vsauce video, it is suggested that the massive levels of hate might be sourced in the uncanny valley. Its a font trying to look like natural handwriting, and it gets close enough to hit the "oh god no" reflex. I find this idea rather fascinating, I wonder if it would be possible to test it?

[SiuiS]

Its just popular to bash on it. Does it have issues? Sure, in egregious amounts compared to other subjects to justify the hatred? Nope.

Has it been over used? Oh probably, but like Vsauce said this is not a failing of the font, its a failing of the people using it. Some people like their steak well done, this is not a failing of steak, those people are just terrible human beings. Hating a font because stupid people misuse it is like hating Ford because drunk drivers are a thing. If a moron does something stupid we blame the moron not the inanimate object he misused.

Speaking of the Vsauce video, it is suggested that the massive levels of hate might be sourced in the uncanny valley. Its a font trying to look like natural handwriting, and it gets close enough to hit the "oh god no" reflex. I find this idea rather fascinating, I wonder if it would be possible to test it?

I dunno. Isn't uncanny valley sp... Nevermind, no it's not.

Hmm.uncanny value isn't hate or dislike though, it's revulsion. Or well, not hate in the Internet sense. A feeling of wrongness and disgust. I have never heard comic sans described with nonhyperbolic terms of dislike. I have heard of actual uncanny valley beig described as such.

[Domino Quartz]

I dunno. Isn't uncanny valley sp... Nevermind, no it's not.

Hmm.uncanny value isn't hate or dislike though, it's revulsion. Or well, not hate in the Internet sense. A feeling of wrongness and disgust. I have never heard comic sans described with nonhyperbolic terms of dislike.

You can hear (or read) it from me, then: I don't like Comic Sans because it looks wrong to me in any font size much larger than 10. I can't give an exact reason, though I think it's probably the reason described in the video by VSauce. As for your first point, couldn't the revulsion be the reason behind the dislike? In any case, it's not necessarily the same as the human - nonhuman Uncanny Valley graph, but I think it's the same sort of idea (i.e. it looks wrong because it's almost, but not quite, a natural-handwriting-style font - it's not straight and regular enough to be a normal font, but not natural and flowing enough to look like handwriting).