He keeps saying it's an 'unattractive font', but the truth is, it became popular because so many people like it.<p>Here's the kicker: It's only 'unattractive' to people who know everything about typefaces. Nobody else cares, and they find it pleasing.
People with dyslexia apparently find Comic Sans substantially easier to read than many other common computer fonts: <a href="http://www.dyslexic.com/fonts" rel="nofollow">http://www.dyslexic.com/fonts</a><p>It would be interesting to have something similar to CSS media queries for screen size for accessibility flags. Making it easier to change fonts for dyslexic people or color schemes for colorblind people would be great.
Thank you, this was a very convincing statement on a subject that I usually cannot find a solid answer to. I have queried quite a few designers on Comic Sans as to why they hated it. Most of the time the answer is "Cause it sucks". Sometimes the answer is "because it is used everywhere". However, in terms of the web, there are a couple of surveys showing the usage of Comic Sans is pretty far down the list. Why don't design schools teach designers how to articulate why something is bad? Even if the answer is "because it evokes a negative emotional response" should be followed up with some description of the kind of emotion it invokes and hard data.
Holy cow. Aside from the terrible kerning, Comic Sans actually looks pretty reasonable without anti-aliasing.<p>And even saying that makes me feel dirty. :(
I never really wondered why Everyone hates comic sans so much,that much is obvious. What I want explained is why everyone <i>loves</i> helvitica <i>so</i> much. It's just a plain but readible font, there are <i>tons</i> of those.
Can't help but link to an old favourite picture of mine, seems appropriate.<p><a href="http://www.corincole.com/misc/random_pics/comicsans.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://www.corincole.com/misc/random_pics/comicsans.jpg</a><p><i>edit: in case it's ambiguous, 'mine' refers to it being my favourite, not my photo</i>
I don’t think aliased 12px Comic Sans (a heavily hinted font, with large x-height and even strokes, designed explicitly for the screen) can fairly be compared with whatever Garamond variant he flashed on screen (a font intended for use with high-resolution printing on paper, by appearances not at all hinted, and maybe even a type 1 font). A reasonable comparison would be to Verdana or Georgia, which would nicely show the Comic Sans version to be dramatically worse looking.
Comic Sans is despised precisely because middle-aged, middle-class moms love it. It's not great, but it's not as terrible as the design snobs, itching to deploy their portfolio of expensive Zapf typefaces, are making it out to be.<p>You want a <i>bad</i> font? Try the garbage that MTV used for titling in the mid-90s. They stopped using nice, clean Kabel for music video lower thirds and started using this uneven-baseline, uneven-stroke-width trash font.<p>The 90s sucked in so many ways...
The nerd and wannabe designer in me was fascinated by reading the article, but I struggled with the takeaways other than a detailed reason to "not use comic sans" (which I think I've been able to do post 1997.)<p>Are there more conclusions in the article that I should apply to my designs beyond the typography choice?
I know, I post this on EVERY Comic Sans thread. But, it's still awesome, so I'll post it again. The Best Comic Sans Story Ever: <a href="http://www.metafilter.com/86695/I-thought-I-was-the-only-one#2824387" rel="nofollow">http://www.metafilter.com/86695/I-thought-I-was-the-only-one...</a>
I appreciate that Kadavy actually delves into the technical deficiencies of Comic Sans before he gets to the real heart of the matter at the end.<p>He misses the larger 'hacker design' point, however - unless you are an experienced designer, you are much better off picking a standard classic font, such as Helvetica, than trying to get all 'design-y' and picking some weird display font, in the mistaken belief that somehow this is adding 'personality' to your design.
I have a friend who works at a well known management consulting firm. One of his clients insisted that every deck was done in Comic Sans. The client already had a bad reputation, and this quirk just made it worse.
This article is very interesting, but as a comic sans hater myself, I don't think it's really the technical details of the typography that are at the root of my loathing.<p>I have the same hopeless feeling when I receive a letter in comic sans as when my boss's assistant sends me an email with a 1Mo gif saying "happy new year" or when I see a billboard ad where the pixels are 10cm wide because someone thought resizing the 100x100px jpg in MS paint would do the trick. Or, more extreme, when I found this website yesterday: <a href="http://taxis75.fr/" rel="nofollow">http://taxis75.fr/</a> .<p>The annoying part is that it looks unprofessional, and out of place. It makes me think the person didn't even <i>try</i>, didn't even take 2 seconds to contemplate the result of their "work" and realize what a mess it is. As someone who tries to be perfectionist, not to overlook the details; seeing people making such a terrible work and getting away with it is a bit offensive. And when I receive a letter or a service note written in comic sans, I feel it's disrespectful.
For obvious reasons, I'm reminded of this marvellous (true) story about recognising, rewarding, and hating Comic Sans - <a href="http://www.johnbraine.com/2010/10/the-king-of-comic-sans.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.johnbraine.com/2010/10/the-king-of-comic-sans.htm...</a><p>In actual fact, I support the continuation of Comic Sans solely so I can share that link / story with people.
Because what's a sans face without a serif? Introducing Comic Serif!<p>Download: <a href="http://www.dafont.com/hvd-comic-serif.font" rel="nofollow">http://www.dafont.com/hvd-comic-serif.font</a><p>Real life examples: <a href="http://www.idsgn.org/posts/comic-sans-comic-serif/" rel="nofollow">http://www.idsgn.org/posts/comic-sans-comic-serif/</a><p>FYI: This is a real font, though these sites have some NSFW language.
I agree that comic sans is the wrong choice of font in most applications, both from a legitimacy and readability standpoint.
However, if you're into game development, I've discovered no better font for in-game text. Almost all other popular fonts looks out of place in a game.
>When aliased at 12px, Comic Sans is more readable than Garamond.<p>It's also bigger. Why not increase the Garamond size until it fits the same amount of text in the box?<p>I could believe that comic sans is still more readable, but this doesn't seem a fair comparison.<p>(For that matter, what does "12px" even mean, when one font seems to be larger than the other in both x and y directions?)
Does anybody know what font Larry Gonick uses in his "Cartoon Guide to..." books? It's informal and cartoonish, but it doesn't bother me (in the context of Gonick's books). I wouldn't want to read a novel in it.
Comic sans is popular because it is unpretentious, disarming, casual, and playful - it looks a bit childish, messy, and handwritten. It's interesting to read why designers don't like it, but they are completely wrong to "hate" it or advocate that people stop using it. Were comic sans "properly" designed, it would likely look overly clean and pretentious, the opposite of the effect people use it for.