to hate people who defend C*m*c S*ans with no facts

[tokyonambu]

So, the BBC have another article, linking to bancomicsans, giving the highlights of the objections to the typographic cancer of our times. In the comments, Louise, a teacher from the West Midlands (hi!) writes:

As a teacher Comic Sans is an easy to read font, especially for pupils with learning difficulties as it is the only font to use a 'hand writing style' letter a.

(My bold).

The only font, eh? Well, I'm not sure why an "a" with a simple downstroke is the sine qua non of easy reading, nor that you shouldn't aim for people to be able to read common fonts. But it's not true anyway: Century Gothic, or, if we want something everyone has seen Futura. Which is now used for Ikea catalogues, hence its ubiquity.

There are plenty of reasons to ignore Comic Sans snobs, although I confess there was a time when I had my email filters set to automatically discard any message that used it on the grounds that it was probably from an idiot. But please, find a better excuse than "I think fonts should have this magic property and it's the only one".

Sunfun....I had NO idea you were this clued up on your font facts...hilarious! I shall never look at an Excel spreadsheet again in the same light.

As real as an Astrakan coat .

at cumfy

I have a strange mental image of myself working t'donkeys now, accomapnied by laptop.

jj yes sad but true, I have a thing about fonts. As you can imagine, I don't often mention it, but seeing as it came up...

Transport was designed especially for road signs along with all the excellent clear pictograms on our road signs when the motorways were first being built. You don't appreciate it until you drive abroad and can't read the signs.

Yes, I totally agree re roadsigns

If I am in France I can't read the road signs, they are crystal clear in the UK, that must be because of the font.

or possibly because they are in English.

Are you trying to imply there are MNers who don't read French as naturally as English? Lies!

It might also be because you're used to it, GetOrf.

SD

But if you go abroad to English speaking countries...

In North America they have recently tweaked their road sign font which now looks more like 'ours' ? to increase legibility (and I believe accidents have reduced although I might just be making that second point up).

:) yes, i think its actually because it's what you're used to. After driving about in a foreign country for only a fortnight the signs start to look normal and then it all looks slightly odd when you get home.

[ponders]
What sort of country would have Comic Sans as their transport font...?

Actually, i have to confess that i am sitting her eloping as a small Ikea storage box labelled Lego People. in Comic Sans.

I am ashamed.

ummm, ok this thread made me go and check out this comicsans thingy. i did so trepidation, expecting to be shocked to the core...am I missing something?? WTFs all the fuss about?

"Transport was designed especially for road signs "

Whole Saga Here.

Johnston Underground is available from a company called P22. It isn't very well kerned, so you need to fiddle with spacing to make it look right, but it's worth the trouble.

Gill didn't steal it unbidden: he was working with Johnston at the time, as a student.

Some links here to academic evidence/testing for readability of Comic Sans (and Arial)

My local city council uyse Comin Cans on their vehicles (rubbish trucks, maintanance vehicles, city rangers etc.). It is very embarassing.

Great thread.

I used to work for a company that taught English to children, and Comic Sans was the default typeface. We were supposed to use it on all correspondence. I only used it when I knew that my boss was likely to read the letter or email.

Thanks T&B. The conclusion is, indeed, that the primary school teachers that bang on about Comic Sans having some evidence base for young/dyslexic/etc readers are talking total nonsense. As I suspected.

lol @ this thread.

Can't believe there realy are people that get upset or bothered by a font type!

I do use Comic Sans for primary school stuff that I do at home often as I have't gotten round to downloading Sassoon Infant (I use that at school) yet, and not many fonts have the type of a shape I want.

I don't use it for adult stuff, but then I am normally producing stuff for 5 and 6 year olds.

Does remind me to download Sassoon thouggh...

I have never heard of a teacher using dsylexia as a reason for using Comin Sans. Infact, for dyslexia, some may argue you should used fully cursive, joined up lettering for that one.

Most I know who use it, or Sassoon, use them because of the way an a is written, as we are teaching children to form the a in a certain way, not like the a in Times New Roman, etc.

This is worth reading, too.

hehe i have just e-mailed this thread to DP. he'll be glad that MN has a core of comic sans haters

Actually cumfy I read GOML's post that way too :) Was wondering why spreadsheets were such a large part of working donkeys

This thread sums up why I love mumsnet.

Love the way that Comic Sans is asterisked out as it antichrist font, but Cunting (as in Sainsburys) is used on a regular basis

tokyo, it's not nonsense. There is evidence that Times New Roman is really not good (for anyone), and there is evidence that sans serif fonts are good for some kinds of reading (though not Comic Sans more than any other).

Check out Arnold Wilkins' publication record.

I think whoever wrote the criticisms in Teal's link doesn't make sense, but I may be wrong.