Comic Sans: Typeface [sic]
by Donovan Beery, (2 comments)
Much to my amazement, the typeface [sic] Comic Sans didn’t just appear out of a lava pit of hatred, but was actually designed by a Microsoft employee named Vincent Connare. Vincent designed this typeface [sic] out of a lack of “fun” fonts (obviously he did not know the real fun of Garamond when used in italics).
So if it is so fun, why has Comic Sans become the arch-nemisis of our profession?
First, we must look at where it began. Vincent explains, “I started to make the font in October 1994. Initially it was picked up by the team working on Microsoft 3D Movie Maker for use in speech balloons.”
If it had stopped there, I believe Comic Sans would be regarded in much the same way as a lot of decorative typefaces are by myself and others – a decent tool that when used properly, can enhance the project at hand.
But that was not to happen, because in 1995, Microsoft started including Comic Sans with every computer possible, and as of September 12, 2004, only Arial Black is found on more computers – Comic Sans is on 93.48% of PCs.
It is obvious to me why Comic Sans is the typeface [sic] of choice for so many. As a large portion of computer users only have the system fonts on their machine, and see no reason to spend money on real typfaces, they are stuck selecting from a limited handful of selections. Sad as it may be, Comic Sans is still the only “fun” one – and it is hard to convince the general public that you can have “too much fun.”
This natural overuse by the general public has taken Comic Sans from a “typeface”, to a “typeface [sic]”.
It gets worse. By 2030, it has been reported that this could be the only typface [sic] in use. I don’t fully believe that, but I do not see it going away anytime soon.
Comments (2)
Paul said:
Although I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not exactly reaching too regularly into Suitcase to trot out anything set in Comic Sans, I also feel a rather curious yearn to come slightly to Vincent’s defense in this particular cross-examination of his product and reputation.
I think the worst charge we can really bring against Vincent himself is that he meant well and wasn’t as aesthetically or typographicly sensitive as the majority of us would have preferred when he authored this piece of TrueType. He does, however, graphically (pun very much intended) represent an aesthetic that we may simply have polished ourselves out of in the process of our collective design / typographic educations: a kitschy, naive, hominess surrounding type forms.
With the benefit of experience, guidance, and any number of educators who have sought to point us in loftier directions, we see Comic Sans as a half-step away from a common handwriting font and several steps away from a refined drafting font. Vincent sees it as a step shy of the 1950’s / 1960’s drafted handwriting of a Jack Kirby or any of the teams of letterers who came before or after him - he just doesn’t see his own emulation of that clearly enough to recognize the many ways that it misses its mark.
These are palpably what our eyes wince at and what we in turn scoff at about this font, but we also lack the rather fortuitous professional situation / location which Vincent found himself in and which has in turn allowed Vincent’s work to find homes on nearly every computer in existence. 94.1% frequency, outnumbered only by Arial, the work of the Monotype Corporation (view further information at: http://www.styopkin.com/articles/examplefontinfo.html).
Additionally, I suspect that Vincent’s eyes reasonably reflect the eyes of about 80% of the population that do in fact look at Comic Sans and see “Fun Font” as opposed to “Hackneyed attempt at a handwritten sans-serif - barely reaching the geometry of a nice drafting hand” - I also suspect that 80% of the population would prefer an American Single to a fine brie, but these are also the minutae of taste and discernment. Vincent’s eyes were not only supported by his compatriots in the software development group, they were appreciated with enough fervor to promote their product up the food chain and ship it out with Microsoft products (even slipping under the radar of all those Mac designers who were apparently too busy determining which contemporary industrial skin the next G-Whatever would wear and entice us with). If this gets our ire and reproach in such a nit, than we need to be better about sharing our educations and understandings to help those even less acquainted with type see more of what we see in it.
What may be a more adamant quest in perspective of this, however, is making ourselves available and cooperative with our computer science comrades and lending a truly helping hand in the moments when they’re authoring the GUIs that half the world is going to interface via. At least volunteer to suggest a Gill or Helvetica when they start to reach for a Comic or a Brush Script. At least Vincent actually felt the personality of type enough to sense that there might need to be a little more play in it to make things friendlier.
Type history is big enough and human enough to include the Roman ruins of Trajan, the cathedrals of Garamond, and the ramshackle huts of Ransom or Hobo. If we console ourselves with sarcastic snobbery and tilt our wrists at those less fortunate, we’ll continue to design our masterpiece typefaces that will garner exposure only on our personal sites and Vincent’s will continue to be passed in high volume onto each new platform that’s released.
Accept this as the snub of someone passionately involved in educating bodies of people who were like each of us before we had our first typography course, and know that I actually do think Comic Sans is also a hilarious little aberation in the realm of type - I just also know none of my fonts are currently out there to endure the same scorn or praise…
Posted on September 29, 2004
Donovan Beery said:
Even Vincent admits this is not a typeface as we normally use, as he says:
“Comic Sans was NOT designed as a typeface but as a solution to a problem with the often overlooked part of a computer program’s interface, the typeface used to communicate the message.
There was no intention to include the font in other applications other than those designed for children when I designed Comic Sans. The inspiration came at the shock of seeing Times New Roman used in an inappropriate way.”
I do think that Comic Sans was originally used properly, and has good purposes, although using it as body copy, as we so often see is not its intent, and has been what has given it the bad reputation that it has earned over the past nine years. I do not blaim Vincent for this, as he created an excellent solution to the problem, and it is not his fault this is how it will be remembered. Much in the way I’m sure Paul Rand wouldn’t like how his Enron logo is remembered today, and in no way do to anything he has done.
Posted on September 29, 2004