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Why I created Comic Sans

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Re: Why I created Comic Sans

#131

Post by TheAnimus »

NoPiece wrote: post #14
simonsarris wrote: post #7

Comic Sans as a font needs no defense. Just like a good band with bad fans, we don't balk at Comic Sans, we balk at the people who use comic sans for inappropriate things. (Or to use a more computery analogy, there's nothing wrong with capital letters or all-caps, but some users use them inappropriately). City memo minutes should not be distributed in Comic Sans. Wedding invitations should probably not be in Comic Sa…

There is definitely an internet lynch mob mentality on this even though the inappropriate use critique is spot on. You'd have to be a brave designer to use it, even in an befitting way. Apps like Balsamiq have dropped it and subbed in look-a-likes just so people have cover to say it isn't Comic Sans. http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups/font

It's a bit of a craze to mock things, we like to be pack animals feasting on the fresh carcus afterall. Just search Nickleback on Reddit.

However it's bizzarely useful in a way. Say you've got a trail version of an application, you can have a penalty of users who run the app for more than a month without a purchase. Simply flick the font in to Comic Sans. You gain geek credit, even some free blog advertising under the Comic Sans lol bandwagon.

That then creates more posative feedback, people like to read things they are already vaugely familiar with, so you get that natural circle of hate.

Re: Why I created Comic Sans

#132

Post by seez »

tikhonj wrote: post #8

One of the reasons people don't like Comic Sans is because it was overused, largely thanks to being included with a bunch of default Microsoft tools. It was also use in the wrong contexts. Amusingly, I think the same holds true of the typeface that sparked the whole thing: Time New Roman. Far too many people use it for far too much, sometimes in the wrong context. So maybe we should all use Times less too! (I tend to…

What about Mistral? Do you think it's been abused? I'm from Montreal and it's been use everywhere. Just look at this and tell me it's hasn't been used a lot! Maybe more than Comic Sans and we never hear about it. http://www.mattsoar.org/gallery/Mistral

Everything from movie posters(Drive,Flashdance), to asian restaurants and much more.

Re: Why I created Comic Sans

#134

Post by epsylon »

digitalengineer wrote: post #57
jQueryIsAwesome wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on what you mean by "say"; if you mean gender I think is true. But if you consider people who like just one music genre and can stay motivated and loyal only because of that then you don't have too much say about who will be your fans, if you like trash metal it doesn't matter if you have a PHD from Harvard and your social circle is mostly composed by honored students, because the genre you may appel to a ver…

Kurt Cobain sure did. By cross-dressing he made Nirvana have a lot less appeal for the heavy metal fans.

Heavy metal and grunge are two very different genres.

Re: Why I created Comic Sans

#135

Post by nchlswu »

ameen wrote: post #16
tikhonj wrote: post #8

One of the reasons people don't like Comic Sans is because it was overused, largely thanks to being included with a bunch of default Microsoft tools. It was also use in the wrong contexts. Amusingly, I think the same holds true of the typeface that sparked the whole thing: Time New Roman. Far too many people use it for far too much, sometimes in the wrong context. So maybe we should all use Times less too! (I tend to…

Microsoft did partly address that by making Cambria and Calibri its default header and body fonts. But really, basic knowledge about Typography would help a great deal in creating decent looking content. A Serif title with Sans body-text for the web makes content easier to read, and the inverse is true for print.

>A Serif title with Sans body-text for the web makes content easier to read, and the inverse is true for print.

For whatever it's worth, these conventions are largely unfounded.

With respect to readability or legibility alone, a majority of any research of a sans vs a serif has been weak or contradictory; you can't make a conclusion either way. These studies are often cited which continues to perpetuate the myth,

While I admittedly do prefer these conventions, they're largely arbitrary and shaped by historical precedent and evolved over time. For example, poor resolution screens were the primary reason to use serifs, yet I've heard plenty of questionable rationale for it over time

Re: Why I created Comic Sans

#136

Post by joezydeco »

derleth wrote: post #126
simonsarris wrote: post #7

Comic Sans as a font needs no defense. Just like a good band with bad fans, we don't balk at Comic Sans, we balk at the people who use comic sans for inappropriate things. (Or to use a more computery analogy, there's nothing wrong with capital letters or all-caps, but some users use them inappropriately). City memo minutes should not be distributed in Comic Sans. Wedding invitations should probably not be in Comic Sa…

> there's nothing wrong with capital letters or all-caps In the transportation world, all-caps is known to be harder to read than mixed-case in fixed-message signs: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/5892/is-all-caps... All-caps is also generally less legible than all-lower-case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_caps (in particular reference 7, Tinker, Miles A. (1963). Legibility of Print . Ames, Iowa: Iowa…

Re: transportation, there's a lot of interesting data collected on the design of Clearview, the new typeface for the US interstate road system:

http://clearviewhwy.com/ResearchAndDesign/legibilityStudies....

Re: Why I created Comic Sans

#137

Post by qu4z-2 »

SourPatch wrote: post #117
coldtea wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Comic Sans glyphs seem to each stand on their own, unable to keep themselves together to form a word. The case against Comic Sans in undue context is due to the funny glyphs, while the case against Comic Sans vs other comic fonts is due not to the glyphs but to the whitespace around them. This whitespace and keming problems though might add to the naive appeal of the font. Like, for example, bad perspective and dis…

> keming Is that a typographical pun?

I'm not sure if it's technically a pun, but it's definitely a typographical joke.
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