comic sans: the experience*

*now with bonus content (see bottom)

A key to understanding anyone is to not only understand their likes, their history, and the way they go about doing things, but their dislikes as well. In this corner: graphic design. And in the other corner: Comic Sans.

Designers who are reading this may already be experiencing a rise in body temperature and a slight vibration in their forearms - what you feel is your blood beginning to boil. The unfamiliar are either a) entirely confused at this point or b) recognize “Comic Sans” as the word they selected from the “fonts” menu the last time they sent their mom an email.

Let’s create an equal playing field of understanding before we move on - This is comic sans:

I know the sight of it made some of you, namely the designers, shudder, but just stick with me here. If you felt a little leap of joy in your heart upon seeing it, please slap yourself on the hand with a ruler and immediately print out this article as you will need to read it multiple times.

As you may or may not know, it is a practically universal hate among designers towards Comic Sans and 99.8% of it’s applications. Why? Well, let’s dive right in. The following was taken from bancomicsans.com, a completely unbiased source: 

Early type designing and setting was so laborious that it is a blasphemy to the history of the craft that any fool can sit down at their personal computer and design their own typeface. Technological advances have transformed typography into a tawdry triviality. The patriarchs of this profession were highly educated men. However, today the widespread heretical uses of this medium prove that even the uneducated have opportunities to desecrate this art form; therefore, destroying the historical integrity of typography.

Like the tone of a spoken voice, the characteristics of a typeface convey meaning. The design of the typeface is, in itself, its voice. Often this voice speaks louder than the text itself. Thus when designing a “Do Not Enter” sign the use of a heavy-stroked, attention-commanding font such as Impact or Arial Black is appropriate. Typesetting such a message in Comic Sans would be ludicrous. Though this is sort of misuse is frequent, it is unjustified. Clearly, 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.”

And that’s just it: most of the time Comic Sans is entirely inappropriate to use. But the origin of the hate goes far beyond that. 

Beyond being inappropriate, Comic Sans is poorly designed. Usually, typefaces are designed with the upmost care (for examples where they are not designed with said care, see dafont.com). I had the pleasure of watching my good friend Darrin Crescenzi design a typeface and slowly devolve from a suave, chipper lad into a raving, ranting lunatic. Designing a typeface is an incredibly detailed and complicated undertaking. There are all sorts of things to take into account that you would never dream has to cross one’s mind when designing “a font.” For example, Wikipedia notes the problems of Comic Sans’ design: [poor rendering], virtually equal weight being given to the downstrokes and horizontals, and little thought given to the kerning between character pairs, eliminating any of the informal characteristics of true hand-drawn lettering. Most of you probably got confused around “weight” and how that relates to letters, so we’ll just say designing a typeface is incredibly hard work and leave it at that. 

I’m not entirely sure how Comic Sans was designed, but I have an inkling is was hashed out by the child of a Microsoft employee who, drunk with power and an endless supply of Juicy Juice, took to the walls of his or her household with a black marker to deftly protest the lack of cookies in the snack cabinet. Due to conventional parenting techniques, the developer-parent did not punish the child, but sought to boost his or her blossoming self esteem by turning the pro-cookie propaganda into a flagship Microsoft font. Ok, so I do know how and when Comic Sans was actually created, but with its multitude of problems, the above explanation sounds a lot more plausible — trust me. 

So what have we learned here? Comic sans: poorly designed.

Above and beyond the design of the typeface itself, is the fact that Comic Sans  aids laziness and ignorance of design. When you don’t have the verbal acuity to describe just how fun and fancy-free little Billy’s 5th birthday will be, never fear: just throw some Comic Sans on the invitation! PTA meetings not as fun to everyone else as they are you you? Show them how whacky and fun you are with a little dash of Comic Sans!

This type of behavior shows of a rudimentary understanding of many of the principles that graphic designers have spent years learning and subsequently immerse themselves in daily. Using Comic Sans (or clip art for that matter) says, “hey, that’s simple, I can do that to.” Only: you can’t. If I was to show up at an engineering firm for a job interview with my non-engineer resume and my 4th grade popsicle-stick bridge project from Ms Feldster’s class, I would be laughed out of the office–that is, if engineers had a sense of humor. [To learn how painfully unfunny and droll engineer humor is, just watch this video. (Just kidding...some of my best friends are engineers...although I have never seen them laugh.)] But still - the point remains.

Now, I may have a rudimentary understanding of engineering since my bridge was once able to hold a dozen eggs and 14 green plastic army men, but I would still have no knowledge of all the hard-work, mathematics, and subtleties of engineering. If I was going to try my hand at designing a bridge, it would be a mess.

Defending one’s use of Comic Sans is even worse. I could scream and shout all I wanted, but were I put in charge of an actual engineering project it would lead to DEATH - much in the same way a soccer mom could easily kill a branding project. It is silly to defend one’s use of Comic Sans with “but I like it.” Oh yeah? Well I like building bridges, but as I noted earlier: DEATH. If I waltzed around claiming I could then engineer and showing off my “triumph” after outputting such a disastrous project I would look incredibly foolish. Hopefully you see where I’m going with that.

Admittedly, a large piece to this complex puzzle of the hating of comic sans is also the sense of community it establishes. We share a common bond through our common enemy. Just as Nazis were the go-to bad guy in cinematic history for some time, Comic Sans easily steps in to play the villain when orphans and widows can’t fit the bill. (For you non-designers who are currently enraged and considering starting a letter-writing campaign: don’t worry, it was a design joke.) 

So you’ve used Comic Sans in the past, and now you’re not allowed to. “What will I do now?” you may ask. You are allowed to use Times New Roman or Helvetica (or Arial if you must). No other typeface is now accessible to you unless you are willing to educate yourself. Feel free to contact a designer and pay him or her generously should you need an invitation to Billy’s 5th Birthday, though. “But,” you may ask,” you said designers are against Comic Sans applications 99.8% of the time. What if I’m in that .2%?” You aren’t. No more greeting cards, newsletters, ads, emergency exit signs, graduation invitations in Comic Sans. Period.  

Next time: Papyrus.

Bonus 1// If you understood this post, you may or may not get a kick out of this image. 

Bonus 2// Here is a link to the post’s soundtrack. Evan stated that he “will NOT have my senior thesis project be defaced by such tripe,” but I find it to be thematically sound. So, I have left the decision in the hands of you, the loyal reader.