My War Against Comic Sans

At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon, I have to say that there are a few things that I think define the dumbing down of America.  First was the rise of reality TV.  Seriously?  Do we really need to see people conniving, mating and singing badly for entertainment?  Really?  But my hatred of that particular genre will have to be the subject of another post.

Today, I'm talking about a more insidious force - one that threatens our daily lives: the super casual Comic Sans font.  You may be tempted to dismiss my concern as simple overreaction, but read on, my friend.  This threat is real!  So how did this happen?  How did we get to the point where something originally playful has turned so ominous?  What is it about this seemingly benign typeface that inspires such hatred?

When it first showed up, I was completely enamored with it.  It's a FONT on the computer and when you use it, everything looks like a Charlie Brown cartoon!  How cool is that?!  Of course, I was a teenager then - not a moody, dark, sarcastic one.  I was more of a let-me-carry-a-Beauty-and-the-Beast-lunchbox-ironically kind of teenager.  I will admit to overuse in my younger years, but it was done ironically.  Really.  And anyway, I grew up.  But the evil Comic Sans did not.  Meanwhile its popularity remained, and its power grew.

As a result, this causal font has popped up in completely inappropriate places.  Over on Six Revisions - Useful Information for Web Developers & Designers, Cameron Chapman shared several examples in his post entitled Comic Sans: The Font Everyone Loves to Hate.  Here's my favorite:





Author David Kadavy probes deeper in his post Why You Hate Comic Sans,  He actually goes into an analysis of what makes this a bad font.  I found it quite interesting, because I had never probed too deeply into the design reasons why I hated the poor font.  His analysis of stroke, weight management and letterfit was very enlightening.  But it was his conclusion that resonated with me.  The overuse of Comic Sans was a result of the democratization of desktop publishing - a good thing for the masses, not so good for graphic designers - and its use is a sign of an amateur.


Why?  Why?  Why?????  It's because we are mostly lazy!  We go for the easy win.  Depending on your machine, you could have hundreds of fonts from which to choose.  It's too hard to sit and thoroughly consider the implications of each one.  (Which, by the way, if that particular task was an Olympic sport, I'm pretty sure I would qualify for the team.  Just sayin'.)  Why would Ms. Average American waste time considering font choices when she could be watching a show where a mean man makes people cry for our entertainment?

 Graphic designers get that each typeface connotes a world of meaning.  Using Comic Sans is a way for a person to declare his or her illiteracy of that concept.   It conveys to the world that while you are able to operate a computer, you don't get that there is a deeper layer of meaning to choosing type.  So c'mon! You're no dummy!  Put away that Comic Sans and spend a bit more time considering your font choices.

You can always set the DVR.