Sans Comic
I was perusing fleaBay this morning when I came across this little gem of an ad for a track bike. Now, I’m no expert in typography, but underlined yellow Comic Sans (the instant coffee of fonts) on a white background has to be wrong. Sure, it might match the frame, but perhaps that’s ugly too?
I’m sure the peeps over at ban Comic Sans would find it interesting - or maybe they wouldn’t be surprised. They’re running an underground campaign to put the sans in Comic Sans.
Comic Sans as a voice conveys silliness, childish naivete, irreverence, and is far too casual for such a purpose. It is analogous to showing up for a black tie event in a clown costume.
While we recognize the font may be appropriate in a few specific instances, our position is that the only effective means of ending this epidemic of abuse is to completely ban Comic Sans.
We understand font selection is a matter of personal preference and that many people may disagree with us. Those who do not share our views should visit the Comic Sans Appreciation Society and the Illustrated History of Comic Sans.
My boss, Richard, an otherwise learned man, insists on using this ridiculous font for all of his PowerPoint presentations - to the point where he’ll change my carefully crafted slides with a nasty ‘Ctrl+A’, ‘Ctrl+D’ combo. It’s downright embarrassing! Perhaps it’s a plan to lure his audiences into a false sense of security, like they’re back in pre-school, while he is really hitting them with some knowledge?
I asked the eBay guy,
“Was the use of yellow underlined Comic Sans a mistake?”.
To which he replied,
“yes it was my daughter did this for me ok regards ian”.
Ian, it’s not “ok”.
February 14th, 2008 at 11:36 am
That is just wrong!
February 19th, 2008 at 8:28 am
Tom, your doubts and concerns are well founded. Comic Sans itself should be given credit for being a reasonable font, on its own. It is people’s misuse of this font through bad software, bad spacing, bad line lengths/composition and bad context. It’s also the over use which causes this font to be so annoying.
However people do the same with Helvetica and it’s no where near as annoying. Then again, arial to me, is worse than comic sans. I’m fairly certain though, that comic sans should never be used as a serious commercial font as there are much better alternatives and no good reason to use it.
What a douchebag.
February 19th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Yes, the font and colour is a gross oversight of taste but you know what really, really gives me the shits in fleabay ads? CRAP PHOTOS!! Look at the 3rd photo in the ad which is trying to be a close-up shot of the rim. It hurts my eyes.
February 21st, 2008 at 10:10 am
humph, anonymous, got a problem with arial, eh? are you on ’srooms!? arial is way better than comic sans! and much much more pleasing to the eye than that clunky and messy piece of crap times new roman. I would 100% prefer to read a paper, receive a report, look at an ad, or anything really, in arial than comic sans OR times new roman.
let’s not even mention apple chancery, ok?
locks, yes, bad photos are a blight on the internets. you should see some of the foodblogs out there with out of focus, over exposed flash-at-night, not to mention blobby slop on plates images. you’d think people would realise at the time that the pic they took was not in focus, and… try again. maybe they didn’t have their glasses on?
February 22nd, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Well that thing on the bike is not even comic sans. Just for the sake of procrastination I typed the same thing in word, and it doesn’t look like that. It’s still pretty ugly, but the real comic sans would have been even worse.
I agree with you Zoe, I prefer arial. But in this whole academic circus you’re supposed to use times new roman for documents and arial only for power point. Otherwise you may get the kind of criticism Dr. Rayner had for the comic sans presentations.
Personally I like courier new. It has the retro look and it’s easier for analysing dna sequences and nerdy stuff like that.
February 28th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
A friend of mine ACTUALLY SUGGESTED that I used Comic Sans as a font for my CV because it was ‘Easy to read’.
As I’m hoping to work in a design-based environment I think I’ll ignore that advice.