September 28, 2004
Ban Comic Sans
You've undoubtedly seen Comic Sans, the Microsoft font that attempts to look like classic comic-balloon writing. It doesn't, of course: Quite the contrary, it is a "painful and inadequate usurpation of comicbook style lettering", as blogger Brandon Rickman correctly puts it. But because Comic Sans looks "wacky" and "goofy", it is constantly used in Powerpoint presentations, as the assistant vice president in charge of paperclips attempts to kickstart his two-stroke-engine of a soul and somehow express his inner creativity.
Clearly, this madness must stop. So it came as no surprise for me to discover that there is a highly-organized campaign to ban Comic Sans. As their web site argues, Comic Sans ...
... has been used in countless contexts from restaurant signage to college exams to medical information. These widespread abuses of printed type threaten to erode the very foundations upon which centuries of typographic history are built.
There is no way for reasonable adults to disagree.
As a public service, the site hosts free-for-download fonts that do a much better job of emulating comic-book lettering; one of my favorites is "Action Man"!
(Thanks to Brandon for this one!)
Posted by Clive Thompson at September 28, 2004 01:29 PM
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Just make your own - http://www.fontifier.com/
Has anyone used this yet? I've downloaded the template and filled it out, just haven't gotten around to scanning & uploading it yet.
I'd love to hear any feedback.
Oooooo ... downloading now!
One of the senior managers (later a VP, I think?) at a company I worked for had Comic Sans as the default font for her email. It made it impossible to take anything she wrote seriously (which, actually, was the point, since she hated to upset people and never wanted to commit to anything in email anyway).
Can we ban the non-word "signage" while we're at it?
This is a "remember to use this power only for good, never for evil" situation.
I often use PowerPoint to quickly create rough conceptual wireframes of software interfaces for my clients. They are very prone to misinterperting these illustrations as real interface, and getting obsessed with the presentation details. Using Comic Sans in the text on these slides is a very effective way of reinforcing that rough sketches are rough sketches.
I realize that this is an extraordinary application, but Comic Sans has made my life a lot better.
So with you on banning the word "signage"...
I'm as much of a stickler for correct English as the next man, but surely 'signage' is an accepted part of the language these days, as the collective noun for a group of signs?
Clive, Comic Sans has been a pet peeve of mine for something like ten years (or whenever I first ran across it). It's one of the worst fonts ever invented, and yet still manages to find its way into "professional" situations. It's the Piano Tie, Tuxedo T-Shirt or Rainbow Suspenders of fonts. I feel vindicated knowing I am not alone in my hatred of Comic Sans. Thank you for sharing the linkage, I'm going to have a good cry now.
Re "signage" I don't know that it connotes the meaning: a group of signs. I think it is meant to mean: a group of signs and the way they are presented.
This word does gross me out and stinks of corpspeak, and I think that the type of revulsion one could feel toward "signage" is the same type felt against Comic Sans. But what is that revulsion except a specific aesthetic, no more "right" or "wrong" than the corpspeaker's affinity for Comic Sans.
But then, there may be something to this revulsion. The sense one might get is that the corporate attempt at emulation (read: simulation) of "jocularity" or "playfulness" is empty, inaccurate or safe. The emulation seems greedily inoffensive or average--inhuman in a way because it smooths out the individual into a dither(?) of common recognizablity and acceptability.
Doug made me laff.
Tony, I weep with you, quietly, and inside.
As to "signage", I have no particular opinion on it. My personal bugbear is the use of "liaise" in a corporate setting. I know it's actually in the dictionary, but it doesn't sound like a real word.
I vote for a ban on practically all fonts and the use of color in all PowerPoint presentations. People have a sick love for quirky yet unreadable fonts and use them everywhere. There should be a law against more than three fonts being in general use at the same time.
I can relate to your issues with 'liaise' however, its American European chique (like the ice cream).
