I agree with this (http://www.snapily.com/blog/comic-sans-why-all-the-hate/) and specifically the comment by the creator of Comic Sans: “If you love it, you don’t know much about typography,” Mr. Connare says. But, he adds, “if you hate it, you really don’t know much about typography, either, and you should get another hobby.” This meme was become a bit tiresome imho.
I can't say I hate Comic Sans itself, but I remember getting company-wide emails sent out in Comic Sans, like flyers for a bake sale. At that point I realized that it's the people sending them that I despised, not the font. Plus, when my daughter was in 3rd grade, she used Comic Sans for everything, and suddenly it wasn't so ugly. Meanwhile, her teacher sent out weekly class notes in Kristen ITC. If unicorns shit fonts, I'm pretty sure it would be Kristen
If you want to fix the Comic Sans "problem" (in quotes as folks have varying views), you'd need to replace it as a default font on both Windows and OS X. Releasing a font, even a free one, makes almost no difference, as I'd bet 99.9% of the people who use Comic Sans "incorrectly" have no knowledge of how to do so. (Or impetus.)
THAT particular coup would make any font designer get a faraway look in their eyes.
While your cynical assessment of the chances for Comic Neue is almost certainly accurate, at least there's a chance that Comic Neue could replace Comic Sans if it makes a big enough splash that it turns heads at Microsoft or Apple.
Of course, you're saying this in a forum filled with entrepreneurs where each of us has a slim chance in hell of turning our rinky-dink start-ups into unicorns. We do it anyway. A dreamer has got to dream.
Oh, absolutely. My point is really about pivoting to address the real problem and customer. It's not, "I, Joe Consumer, want a better-looking-but-casual typeface." It's, "I'll pick one that looks cool from the drop-down-menu-thingee."
That's funny. I've always found it very readable. I have also ridiculed it in the past. Probably unfairly. These days I actually have a soft spot for the font.
Unreadable fonts are preferred for dyslexic readers, because the uncomfortableness of the font inhibits scanning (error-prone for dyslexics) and promotes reading-letter-by-letter. So there is a tension.
It is readable, but that's not why people dislike it. People dislike it because it gets used in inappropriate situations, like the aforementioned company-wide memos. It's fine when your kid's using it for a lemonade stand sign, but it's not when your Fortune 500 CEO sends out a monthly update.
This is precisely why I dislike Comic Sans. Case in point: our shop handles advertising and print work for a prominent local hospital, and we were asked to design a invitation for a formal, black tie dinner reception being held for a new doctor. We designed the invitation using a formal-looking font combination of Edwardian Script and Adobe Garamond Pro, however the draft was rejected and we were asked to replace all fonts with Comic Sans. The end result looked informal and amateurish, more suitable for a neighborhood barbecue flyer than a black tie dinner invitation.
Honest question: Why? What does this even mean? What makes a font "awful"? Surely this is a matter of personal taste and/or collective fashions?
I guess I'm an outlier since it's become cool to be a font nerd, but I really do not give a shit about typefaces. Except for difficult-to-read cursive scripts, pretty much everything looks fine. I find it difficult to conceive of how so many people get so worked up over this stuff.
I think the reason the Internet hates it in general is mostly because of its use in inappropriate places (I even saw a picture of a funeral announcement that used it).
In a world where good/bad are exactly defined points on a single axis where the unit is readability (and where the relationship between kerning/letterfit and readability was similarly precisely defined) that might have been an objective argument.
You don't have to be a font nerd to see that comic sans is ugly. Just like you don't have to be a car guy to see that an Aztek is ugly or Crocs are ugly. Anyone with any level of aesthetic sensibility will see these things intuitively.
Unfortunately, most people do not have much if any aesthetic sensibility.
If most people do not have much if any aesthetic sensibility, then perhaps you do need to be a font nerd (or a car nerd, shoe nerd, etc) to see these things intuitively.
"Few arguments are weaker than the creator of something dismissing all critics of it as ignorant."
Something comes close though. Dismissing critics as amateurs without further discussion, and also saying anyone who doesn't intuitively agree has no aesthetic sensibility (as is said in a child comment below). These substance free dismissals are equivalent to your criticism of the creator's comments.
You're over simplifying my comment. I gave further explanation by citing other examples which most people can recognize as ugly without further explanation. My point being that such things exist, and Comic Sans is one of those things. Whether you agree or not, I did not just dismiss people who don't agree as "wrong", as the creator of Comics Sans did.
Though, obviously, I do view them as wrong, I gave my reasoning as to why. I could go into more detail as to the exact reasons why Comic Sans is ugly, but others have done a better job than I would elsewhere.
To test every letter in the English Language Alphabet use The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog, and not The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
Yeah, that seems like a terrible "license structure". If he added irrevocable I think it would be sufficient for use, but as is I can't understand how you could currently feel safe using it?
Currently the site says: "No attribution is required, this free version of Comic Neue has been released into the public domain." and links to CC's public domain page at http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ .
Most of the world implemented the Berne Convention, which creates a thing called "copyright". In the world of copyright, absence of license means all rights reserved, except for "fair use", "fair dealing" and similar exceptions. In the world outside copyright law everything is in the public domain, no licenses necessary.
Well, you can have copyright without declaring that everything is copyrighted when it is created. A lot of countries had systems like that until they ratified the Berne Convention.
No, it wasn't implied, it was stated outright that the Berne Convention "creates a thing called copyright" (when, in fact, the Berne Convention harmonizes certain provisions of copyright law among those countries who adhere to it.)
Before 1989 the United States required a copyright symbol and year of publishing on every work. After 1989, i don't know of any country that still does this.
While I'm sure there is a legal system somewhere in the world that does that most places have automatic rights for intellectual property, even if you give it away for free. Trying to use this font for business would result in compliance issues, because it's unclear what you can and can't do with it.
A normal web page would probably have a link to the license information, but since you can't put links in CSS pages the author just had to make it open source.
Bootstrap style pages look gorgeous, but don't tend to say anything useful, and I hate it.
I know it has nothing to do with CSS, and it is technically possible to have a link to something useful when using a pretty design, but I have yet to see an example. Judging by the 25 (now 26) karma I lost I think a lot of people here really like good looking pages with no links or information.
You know, there are, and have been many, many good comic fonts out there. Blambot sells them gives many others away for free. This is where actual comic book creators go for fonts.
Anytime I see someone insisting on using Comic Sans, I gently inform them that Comic Sans isn't even a good comic font, and point them to Blambot, where they can get better ones.
I tend to use comic or handwriting fonts for annotated screenshots when explaining visual or UI/UX things to people. It makes the distinction between the screenshot and my annotations sharper.
You will notice some issues if you use Windows Chrome, which doesn't render TTF well, particularly italics and obliques.
The fix for this is to include SVG font files. I excluded SVG as they're 'advertised' as only existing to support legacy iOS. Today I found out that's not entirely the case.
As for licensing, I provide the files for free for now and state on the site 'No attribution acquired'. I'm being vague because at this point I'm undecided whether to start selling it or not.
I would have appreciated if people in general chose a license before releasing font files.
Right now, I have no idea if I'm able to use the font for a website or for a mobile application. You may provide .woff and @font-face .css, but you don't explicitly say that redistribution through @font-face is allowed. I also have no idea if I can embed the font in a mobile application (phonegap/cordova) through @font-face.
That's what bugs me when designers provide 'for free' font files on a behance page, and what is also the case here: I am explicitly authorized to install the file locally, sometimes I am explicitly authorized to use it for 'commercial projects', and almost never am I explicitly allowed to redistribute it (which renders possible to use it on a website with @font-face or in a mobile or desktop app). As a developer, that sucks. That makes it seem like the 'free font' is for designers only (in the sense of: people that will only use the font to make an image, not a document, not a program).
These problems are of course already solved by the SIL open font license (http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=OFL_web): with fonts released under this license, I am able to fix problems with the font (kerning etc...), I am able to redistribute it (@font-face, embed) AND the original designer is protected from people who want to sell the font ("The OFL allows the licensed fonts to be used, studied, modified and
redistributed freely as long as they are not sold by themselves.").
If you want to sell the font, go ahead and do it! However, promoting it here as free font for a limited time to a crowd of people who have a good chance of being developers, well...
This is a known limitation in Chrome [1], its because it uses GDI for writing type to screen rather than the newer DirectWrite API. They are working on it and there is just one remaining blocking bug to fix [2] before its all sorted.
First thoughts: I like it, it will be interesting to see what the typography community has to say. Slightly off topic, but it's funny how Comic Sans, a font, has become so widely hated and mocked even among non-tech savvy people. There seems to be a tipping point where something becomes cool to hate. It's absolutely impossible nowadays to use Comic Sans, even if it's completely appropriate for the situation, without being mocked by people who have never used anything else but Times New Roman.
I made one with Helvetica written in arial. I always find it interesting to see who picks up on it, but I haven't quite worked out if that makes me like them more or less.
Preferring Helvetica over Arial is commonly just pure snobbery. There are couple of reasons behind that: Helvetica is associated with Macs while Arial is associated with Microsoft. Helvetica can be argued to be "more original" than Arial. The Arial we usually see (Microsofts version) is heavily optimized for low-res screen display at body text sizes, which some might say compromise it for high-res/print use. Helvetica is also available in significantly more variants than the Bold/Italic MS Arial.
When I was a kid writing essays in school on Microsoft Word, I used Arial for awhile, but I started to hate it, even though I didn't know squat about typography. It was just ugly. Ugly on the screen, ugly on paper. So I switched largely to Verdana, though I did go through a Trebuchet phase. To this day, I loathe the look of Arial. When I was first introduced to Helvetica, still knowing nothing about type, I thought it was really pretty.
Well, to be fair, I didn't have Helvetica available at the time I developed my hatred of Arial to compare. And when I look at blown-up / high res versions of Arial text now on my spiffy MacBook screen, they don't look so bad. But looking at old screenshots of Win3.1 still draws my ire. Verdana would have made Windows look so much better had they made that the main OS sans-serif. Arial's just so... pedestrian.
It may have had much more to do with the fact that Win 3.11 had shitty text display than with any real problem with Arial. But Arial really did look horrendous to my eyes compared to Verdana, on the same machine. I do think that had I had access to Helvetica back then I would have liked it more. But without a time machine it's impossible to tell.
I also grew up with computers and started looking at text on screens from the fourth grade. I'd had a long time to develop my eye for type by the time I was writing papers in high school. I could look at a page of printed text and tell which (Microsoft) font it was using, I doubt many kids back then could. I do think I'd have been able to tell Arial from Helvetica. There are quite a few differences between the two. Enough that my practiced eye would be able to tell the difference. Not that my programming day job affords me much practice in that regard.
Okay, I just popped up two TextEdit windows with the same text in Helvetica and Arial. After staring at them for about ten minutes, I can definitely say I like Helvetica better.
Arial just looks clunky compared to it. Helvetica's loops are more rounded, they stand out more boldly from the staffs than Arial's. It's a much more confident typeface. Arial's 'e' looks squashed, it reminds me of a trollface. Its 's' has the same problem, though not as pronounced. Helvetica's versions are much more elegant. Helvetica's numerals are far nicer than Arial's, in particular the '1' and the '2'. The tails of the '6' and '9' daringly overhang the loop slightly in Helvetica, no such eccentricities in Arial, except for the 'f', whose top pokes out past the cross. It would ordinarily be a fine quirk, but in Arial it just looks out-of-place.
I find the qualification of "appropriate for the situation" somewhat disturbing in the example of comic sans. Just like wearing a clown costume to a job interview is hardly ever appropriate (except when you are applying for a job as a clown, then it could bear bonus points for bringing your own).
In my opinion there is just no good use for Comic Sans, except for speech bubbles in a comic (and even for that there are better fonts).
Important memo or note at a pediatric ward of a hospital? Well, you are still communicating with adults, so you don't need to use a "childish" font. Funeral? Nope. Childs Birthday? Nope.
I don't understand the emotional baggage that comes with Comic Sans. Its a font, not a statement. The message is in how the letters are arranged. I'm not even sure I can recognize Comic Sans if I saw it.
Moral? SO there are people like me, who don't give a leap what font you use. Its fine to communicate with us with Comic Sans or Dingbats or whatever. Ignore the people with their banners crusading for better communications through clever framing of the ink.
In my experience it is a certain class of 'designers' that mock Comic Sans. These 'designers' exist a plenty in the wild even though they are not really 'designers':
1) Have Apple branded computer - check.
2) Do not know how to add content to a CMS - check.
3) Incapable of making the smallest tweak to CSS - check.
4) Move files around with a DropBox type gadget and have to get a 'developer' to 'FTP' that PDF to a server - check.
5) Only 'design' for Mac screens with a minimum resolution of Full HD even though the iphone has been out for a while - check.
6) Take inspiration from the latest site-du-jour in a me-too copy-and-paste way, bringing no blue sky thinking to the table - check.
7) Think in terms of CMYK and DPI at all times - check.
8) Never use client content in mock ups, go for Lorem Ipsum when shapes on a page are needed - check.
9) Throw a tantrum if a developer or client makes the slightest change from the cast in stone design mockups for a good reason such as usability - check.
10) Mock 'Comic Sans' - wow I am a real designer now!!!
Windows Chrome appears to be ignoring the kerning tables in the True Type files, as 'fox' appears fine (for me) on everything else I'm testing on. If I've missed something please let me know.
Chrome doesn't shape text (ignoring kerning) if it contains entirely Latin text, as a questionable performance optimization that really reduces legibility of text (IMO). You can use "text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;" to force it to obey kerning.
That's because the kerning tables in this font are woefully incomplete. The only pairs defined are "//", "Ke", "To", "We", "Ze", "Zo", "iz", "oz", "yp", "'r", and "'s".
Then again, Comic Sans from MS has no kerning at all.
The "fo" pair looks decent, but many others leave a lot to be desired. I don't have an explanation for the differences though. Maybe Libreoffice is using a different layout engine.
Beautiful. Friendly. Human. More readable. You've redeemed one of the most hated fonts. You might want to fix up a few kerning issues and re-release but overall I love it. Feels friendly and personable.
If you can do the same with Papyrus you will be knighted.
This is headed in the right direction - but certain things still make the text look not quite right. The angle on some of the vertical lines is still off, giving an unsettling effect, and the curve on 'C/c' need to be smoothed out a bit. Now the next step is to write a worm that replaces comic sans with this on all machines.
True, but I don't believe there's a more dyslexia friendly font in standard fonts which are available on more platforms.
Just a little gripe of mine, to be honest, but it's really one of the only positive things to the font, and having it removed in the process of attempting to improve the font is a bit funny to me.
Public domain license? Awesome! Typographers after my own heart. We need more people to be willing to release their work into the public domain. I'd love to see new open-source projects choose public domain over Apache- or BSD-style permissive licenses.
Comic Sans does serve one good purpose; it's a dyslexia-friendly typeface. It's nice that Comic Neue preserves some of the letter "hints" (ie. the "b" and "d" glyphs have slightly different bottom terminals).
Although if you're trying to optimize specifically for dyslexia, you'd be better off with something like OpenDyslexic [1].
It's bikeshedding since I know nothing about design, but I feel like the name is a bad fit. Comic Sans looks more like a comic speech-bubble script than Comic Neue. Comic Neue looks like a better hand-printed font, but it would look worse in a speech bubble.
It might not be a better alternative to Comic Sans for /that/ particular use case - but for most situations where Comic Sans is used today, Comic Neue would be an enormous improvement.
I really like it, although the kerning definitely needs some fine tuning, as others have already mentioned. I have a hard time seeing it catching on though, but I hope I'm wrong! Good job!
I've never had a reason to use Comic Sans in any particular project, but the way people talk about it you'd think it was a mass murderer. It's just a typefont, guys.
Slightly off-topic, but can someone recommend a good book about typography? I mean more about the history of typography, less about how to design new fonts.
“A man who would letterspace lower case would steal sheep, Frederic Goudy liked to say. If this wisdom needs updating, it is chiefly to add that a woman who would letterspace lower case would steal sheep as well.”
It's obviously a reference to "Neue Helvetica", and that is the font's name, not "Helvetica Neue", as too many people seem to believe. Just wanted to point that out.
Yes. How dare those mothers use Comic Sans when printing a flyer for their child's birthday party instead of scouring the internet for a free but also appealing font!
