The Font We Love to Hate

Bad Me... I have no idea where I got this from. I should have published this post when I wrote it last year!

Comic Sans is a font that people get very worked up about.  I like it. However, I think it's over used, and (more importantly) it should never be used for professional situations! It does not belong on a work email (and lets not even talk about how many comic sans folks also put a color on their background and bizarre photos and animated gifs in their sig file. Fine, you like it. I don't. I think the page is cluttered and hideous, and why on earth the Assistant to the CEO or the head of finances would use an email format like that is beyond me (and yes, I've gotten that type of email from folks who represent the firm they work for, some of them being very high up the food chain).

This week Jessica Jones posted about Comic Sans on her blog How About Orange. There was a large debate about how Comic Sans sucks while other folks vehemently defended it. Jessica's post included a link to a game where you could Kill Comic Sans. However, it just kept popping back up again, just like users and lovers of Comic Sans constantly pop up.

Comic Sans is a font that everybody loves to hate, and it is everywhere. People change their default email text to Comic Sans, even on work emails. They use it to post signs on the bathroom door asking people to please remember to flush. They make flyers with it and slap it all over their websites. So why does everybody hate it? It is not a professional looking font. It looks like handwriting, and it doesn't give a clean, polished finish. Using it at home to draw-up the family's cleaning schedule is fun. Sending your kids to school with a small note typed in Comic Sans that reminds them that you love them (and that they should finish their carrots) is cutsie. Sending a memo to your entire corporation using Comic Sans font just looks cheesie. Check out Comic Sans Criminal for a delightful slide show that explains the importance of a font fitting the situation.

I believe that it is followed by Papyrus. A commenter on Jessica's Comic Sans post randomly stated, "When I see Papyrus, I think 'ugh, hippies', and just keep on walking. You know when Papyrus is appropriate? Never, that's when." Why bring up Papyrus for no reason? Font hate - it isn't kept hidden.

Felicia Day updated her Google+ status with a link to commentary on the Comic Sans font. Randomly looking through The Oatmeal site, I ended up on a blog page where Michael Inman posted about the fonts he uses on his site. I don't actually know when this post was written; I just stumbled across it this week.

Do you like the web comic Questionable Content?  I love it.  And the writer, Jeph Jacques, donated a comic to bancomicsans.com because he also hates Comic Sans (scroll down to see Faye ready to punch a bunny)!

http://bancomicsans.com/