Oh, Ziggy… you’re too funny sometimes.
©2005 Ziggy and Friends, Inc./Dist. by Universal Press Syndicate
(Yes, that’s right. I’ve had this comic pinned up to my cork board for five years and counting.)
Oh, Ziggy… you’re too funny sometimes.
©2005 Ziggy and Friends, Inc./Dist. by Universal Press Syndicate
(Yes, that’s right. I’ve had this comic pinned up to my cork board for five years and counting.)
Designers, by nature, are typography snobs. And we’re damn proud of it. Unfortunately, this puts us at odds with the general public over a single polarizing issue: Comic Sans.
Few fonts elicit such a passionate argument from opposing sides. Your average Joe thinks Comic Sans is a fun n’ friendly, easy-to-read, all-purpose font. This seems to be especially true of school teachers and the cleaning service that leaves fliers in my subdivision’s newspaper boxes. (Note to self: mail cleaning service a business card and suggest a flier redesign.)
Graphic artists, on the other hand, hate Comic Sans. In our humble opinion, it’s the single most over-used and often-abused font in existence today. (Blame Microsoft for pre-loading the lil’ gem on every PC since the introduction of Windows 95.) It may look “cute” on your kid’s print-at-home birthday party invitation, but it certainly is not appropriate for use in a corporate brochure. Unless the look you’re going for is cheap and amateurish. But I doubt that.
The extreme animosity toward this poor font has even inspired an official movement within the design community. A website aptly named “Ban Comic Sans” has a single mission: to put the sans in Comic Sans. (Oh design humor, how I love thee.)
At this blog-style site, you can submit your own photos of Comic Sans gone wrong and even sign a petition to ban the font once and forever. Maybe some day, in my wildest dreams, it’ll actually become a real law. But in the meantime, I think I’ll just ask Santa for my official “Ban Comic Sans” coffee mug and hope people get the hint.