Thursday 21 October 2010

Please: boycott comic sans

Developed by Vincent Connare and released by Microsoft in the mid nineties, this abomination has been plaguing documents and the web ever since.  Please don’t let it continue, if only for the bunny’s sake.

bunnypunch comic sans

I’ll never forget as an undergrad when one of my lecturers used comic sans as the font for the law school handbook. It rankled at the time. It rankles even more so now.  I understand that they were trying to strike a more informal, approachable tone, but it still looked terrible and wasn’t fooling anybody. 

I had a little less respect for them after that.

No self-respecting lawyer should ever consider using comic sans - for anything.  And yes that even includes those in academia!

_49584030_cs2_464Yep – it’s all that and more.


Check out bancomicsans.com. Even the Beeb have got in on the act.

14 comments:

  1. I think I used Comic Sans in seventh grade ... in 1996.

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  2. ... But I thought CSS was De Rigeur in academia - a sort of tongue pursed between lips and awkardly poised pen lettering explaining Wot I did on My PH.D today! Does this mean I have to change the font for EVERYTHING I've written?!?! Waaaaaah!!!!!

    ( kidding actually, I use Arial or Arial Narrow; I simply DETEST Times New Roman!!)

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  3. It's the worst font EVER!!!!!!

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  4. I used to use it at school :) Hate it now though!

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  5. And it's still being used in church newsletters, all over the world.

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  6. whether correctly or not it is often used as a font that is highly accessible to those with visual impairment.
    me, i hate it.

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  7. Minxy - I've not used Times New Roman in 3 years I bet! It's not *so* bad though! :p Arial always seems a tad boring to me though.

    Pooni - hope you're not just saying that! :p

    Andro - hear hear!

    EH - yep, good point. I think our community newsletter uses it too - probably explains that wave of nausea that came over me before I swiftly stuffed it in the bin.

    SW - I didn't know that... it still doesn't excuse it though! ;-)

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  8. Are you saying that I shouldn't use this font in my memos? But it looks so happy and bubbly! ;)

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  9. There are studies which show an essay written in good handwriting will be graded higher than when it is copied out in bad handwriting. I've never seen any research into it but I wonder if Comic Sans might provoke a similar result.

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  10. It's terrible. One of the few fonts that can completely destroy a Power Point presentation! Someone out there is using it now *shudder*

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  11. Lauren - there are loads of happy and bubbly fonts you can use instead of Comic Sans! :-)

    Stephen - I think any student who hands in work in Comic Sans font should be failed as a matter of course.

    Brownbelle - I hear ya! Funnily enough, I happened to see some PowerPoint slides from my GF's postgrad course the other day - yep, you guessed it, all in Comic Sans! Grrrrrr!!

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  12. I've just taken a new job in my company and my predecessor seems to have typed EVERYTHING -- emails, memos, minutes of meetings, notes to herself -- in comic sans. I've only been here a day, but already it's driving me mad...

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