Comic Sans doesn’t disappoint me, people do 🤷🏽♂️
It’s 1995, and you open your word processor. The first thing you need to set before you start is the font. The pressure is on. You keep scrolling. You find everything too generic. But then you and millions like you spot something interesting, and then every cell in your body shouted, “this is it !!!”.
Enter Comic Sans.
“If you love it, you don’t know much about typography
If you hate it, you really don’t know much about typography either and you should get another hobby”- Vincent Connare
Fast forward to today, Comic Sans has been one of the most hated and widely used fonts of all time. It is so hated that there is a website dedicated to its demise.
In 1994, Microsoft was working on a program called Bob. It featured a small cartoon dog named Rover, and Rover spoke in Times New Roman. One man named Vincent Connare took notice of this. He felt that Times New Roman would make it look too formal for a software targeting the younger audience at that time.
So he set out to create his own font. Inspired by comics, Connare created the now infamous script font, Comic Sans.
However, the font wasn’t completed on time to be used in the program. But, Microsoft anyways decided to ship it along with all its Windows 95 software (To many, this might sound like the moment when Pandora’s box was unleashed). Rest is history.
What are the factors that could have made this mediocre font into an all-purpose font?🤔
Digital Revolution
Computers were getting cheaper. Every household could now afford to buy a personal computer and a printer. This gave the ordinary people the immense power to write, print, publish whatever they wanted, in whatever font they wished. But, did they know anything about fonts? Off course not, this was the first time ever that this was happening.
It started with C
Comic Sans starts with a C. “So what?” you ask. That is somewhere on the top of the list of default Microsoft font. People didn’t have to scroll a lot to come across Comic Sans. If Papyrus was instead given a name starting with C, who knows, it could have been another Comic Sans. (Might be the case in some alternate reality, Cpapyrus, with a silent “C” :p)
It was one of a kind (then)
Another reason is owing to its peculiar structure. Comic sans was unlike any other font in the 90’s that people were used to seeing. We as human beings are always in search of novelty. And nothing looked more novel than comic sans at that time.
Anti Aliasing
Comic sans was designed to be used on a screen. And at that time most personal use computers didn’t have anti-aliasing. Anti-aliasing is the technology that makes fonts looks smooth on-screen. Without anti-aliasing, fonts look jagged — as if they were made of LEGOS. Taking this fact into consideration, when compared to Garamond, which wasn’t originally designed for the screen, Comic Sans fares quite well concerning readability.
“Comic Sans is an extremely readable font in small screens”
-Microsoft
Roses are red, Violets are blue. It’s not just Microsoft, But Apple’s got one too
In 2003, Apple released their version of Comic Sans, called Chalkboard to copy the popularity of Comic Sans (IMAGE). Why isn’t anyone talking about this?!
Why so much hate then?😡
The rise of design degrees
To an untrained eye, Comic Sans may seem like a good font. But factor in the man-made rules of what makes a good font and then you get the infamous Comic Sans hated by all, and that is precisely what design degrees did. Along with the digital revolution, the demand for designers also boomed. Colleges started churning them out in millions.
Fact is that Common people usually don’t care what font they use. They just want the information out there. All this hate might be the result of designers realising they wasted years learning how to design fonts. They could have just used a sharpie.
Inappropriate use
As the famous saying goes “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. If millions of people around the world felt that Comic Sans was beautiful, then it must be, right?
The answer is both yes and no. Everything was designed to fulfill a need or a purpose, and Comic Sans is no exception. According to its creator
“Comic Sans was NOT designed as a typeface, but as a solution to a problem with the often overlooked part of a computer program’s interface, the typeface used to communicate the message”
-Vincent Connare
Comic Sans meets its purpose. It looks approachable, it seems sort of hand-drawn, and it looks friendly, exactly what cartoon speech bubbles have to be.
You don’t take something fun and attach it to something like a…
the list goes on and on.
Fast forward to today…😮
The hate has spread along with the love
Everyone knows about Comic Sans and some people take pride in hating it. But Comic Sans need no longer fight this battle alone. Now, there are people in support of Comic Sans and its purpose (there’s even a catchy music video). Knowledge and awareness are spreading as to when and where to use or not use Comic Sans.
Comic Sans — An Emotional Rollercoaster
A group of researchers from the University of South Alabama and Brigham Young studied the emotional effects of different typefaces. They found out that Comic Sans had a unique ability to provoke multiple emotions in people looking at them. They compared it to riding a rollercoaster. While other types, people’s feelings gravitated toward one emotion (Arial: organized; Market Felt: amusement; Futura: focus). Although popular culture would probably lead you to believe that most people’s reaction is one of disgust towards Comic Sans, nothing could be further from the truth. Comic Sans invoked, in its users, agitation, amusement, distraction, stimulation, focus, diversion, determination, calmness, and concern. All of it at once.
Comic Sans is dyslexia friendly
Thanks to its irregular shape. Most of the other fonts are made by repeating shapes to create a new letter. For example, p is rotated to make q. Comic Sans has only a few repeated shapes, forming well distinct letters. Now one might argue that there are other better-looking dyslexia friendly fonts out there. But what you don’t understand is the fact that none is as readily available as Comic Sans, across different operating systems and word processors. Comic Sans is a web safe font too.
Comic Sans got a new look: Comic Sans Neau
Comic Sans Neau, was designed by Craig Rozynsk in 2014. Comic Sans Neau claims to have undone everything that was wrong with the original infamous Comic Sans. Better or not, that is up to you to decide. I personally like it.
Less readable fonts aid your memory
You heard that right. A 2010 Princeton University study presented students with text in a font slightly more difficult to read. They found that the students consistently retained more information from content displayed in so-called ugly fonts (Monotype Corsiva, Haettenschweiler, Comic Sans Italicized were used) than in a simple, more readable font such as Arial or Times New Roman. This is based on a learning principle called “desirable difficulty”. To read “ugly” fonts, you require deeper cognitive processing, which results in better memory retention. Know more here
Comic Sans is not the first
History shows that certain fonts become hated because of its ubiquity and misuse. An example of one such font is “Souvenir” (know as the comic sans of the 70’s) which is currently making a comeback.
Who knows, few decades down the line Comic Sans may also get revived.
