If you were choosing a font for your brand, we’re willing to bet it wouldn’t be…
…Comic Sans.
Surely everyone’s most hated font?
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Overused. Loathed by the masses. Reviled by graphic designers the world over.
But what did this jaunty little font do to deserve such an outpouring of hatred?
The font was designed in 1994 by Vincent Connare for the Microsoft Corporation.
Melinda French (who you now know as Mrs Gates) was working on a new software package called Microsoft Bob. The font used in the instructions for the software was Times New Roman (surely next on the list of ‘Fonts we Love To Hate’) which jarred with the accompanying cutesy illustrations. Connare suggested a new font and set about designing ‘Comic Sans’.
Long story short – when it came to actually setting Comic Sans into the instructions to replace Times New Roman, it was slightly too large and couldn’t be used.
It went on to be used for Microsoft Movie Maker and was released as a font in Windows 95. Subsequently, its cheeky, unassuming and non-threatening curves appeared everywhere. In greetings card, on menus and hand-made posters; later, on terrible websites and hard as it may be to believe – Adidas adverts and even our dear old BBC.
The people rose up against it and campaigns to ‘Ban Comic Sans’ sprung up.
Yet people who work with dyslexic children report that the font is easier to work with on account of its ‘unthreatening clarity’. The brave amongst us may even still use it, even when we feel we probably shouldn’t.
It’s a font we have a love-hate relationship with.
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If you’re choosing a font for your brand – give us a shout! We LOVE consulting on font choice.
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There are so many things to consider and we cringe inwardly (okay – MASSIVELY outwardly) when we see a terrible font that someone picked because they thought it was cute – or worse the font has the SAME NAME AS THE BUSINESS – or because they’re lazy and it was the first one they saw in Word that they liked. Let us help, we’ll be doing you (and the World) a favour!
A font walks into a bar… the bartender says, “I’m sorry, we don’t serve your type”.