To loathe Comic Sans with a passion!

[ComposHat]

I had to go into a local primary school last week and the first thing that struck me was the absolute dominance of Comic Sans.. it was everywhere! From the school sign, to labels and signs, every single one of them in this most loathsome of fonts???? It doesn't say 'fun and friendly' to me, it says 'ugly and inelegant.'

My dad (ex primary school teacher) uses it on emails and it drives me mad! I have to convert the text into another font before I can read the thing.

He even sends off relatively formal letters in this type (I've tried explaining that it is like writing a formal letter with a wax crayon, but he pays no heed.)

He's not the only one, when I worked for social services, 'return tpo court' letters (quite a big deal) were sent out in comic sans and a letting agent recently sent out a form for me in Comic sans - it looked child-like and amateurish and I'm having second thoughts about using them.

There's no need for it, even the most basic version of Windows has lots of beautiful fonts to use at the mere click of a mouse, yet people insist on using Comic Sans

Grrrr!

[ComposHat]

What was the name of the really famour London Underground designer in the 1950s? Eric somebody?

Edward Johnston (called Johnston) designed the London Underground typeset in 1916, so your tutor must have been very old!

[RedToothBrush]

Anyone who uses comic sans should be giving a jail term. Ok, maybe a little strong but I really do hate it that much.


Its total bullshit to use the dyslexia argument to support its use, when there are so many other fonts that are equally good and well known about and used.

If anything, it only helps to reinforce stereotypes that people with dyslexia are in some way stupid or more child like.

Its basically a font, used by people who don't mind patronising others, lack any taste or creativity and are just plain lazy. They should not be allowed near a computer until they are retrained.


spot the graphic designer

[Moominsarehippos]

He was rather old. May not be the same chap though as I worked on the lettering of a sleeve of a book by/about him in the early '90s and he was still alive!

[MinnieBar]

Holy Comic Sans

I like Garamond for a traditional look and Calibri for a clean, professional look. I'm a copy-editor and I am so, so bored of Arial 12. And no, you can't suddenly change to using Times New Roman (original!) for diagrams to 'liven it up'?

[MinnieBar]

Formata is also nice, but I had to download that separately.

[ReadytoOrderSir]

I use Sassoon Primary when preparing my resources ... but my new school does not have it, so I have to print everything at home.

Comic Sans is what they use, but I'd really like one that has a proper t... CS has a straight-bottomed t. The 'What Teacher Wants' font linked above is one that I have used for signs, but it too has a straight-bottomed t.

[GetOrfMoiLand]

Redtooth that is a good post.

And I love Moomins rantings.

[fossil971]

I've got no problem with it being used in primary schools for teaching - although I cringe at getting every single communication from the school in it, even reports. It sticks out a mile to me now.

We recently had a rather dubious little form in Comic Sans come home from the local authority via school, to fill in with details of anyone who you see letting their dog foul. Now I'm quite against dog fouling but that seemed the ultimate in passive aggressiveness to me.

Also last year's Mum's office Diary came out fully Comic-Sans'd and I wrote to them to say it looked awful - I notice it's gone this year.

Worst I saw I think was a signwritten van - something like a funeral director!

[natwebb79]

As a teacher I have been trained to use it as it is the easiest font for dyslexic pupils to read. My dyslexic colleague confirmed that it is. That's more important to me than if some people find it a bit annoying.

[MrsHelsBels74]

I don't get why people hate comic sans with such passion

[Moominsarehippos]

I'm ranting on the 'you gingers' thread now.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

While I always like a good font pedantry thread, does anyone else have a bizarre sense that we've had this thread before? I could honestly swear we have.

Comic sans is useful for annoying students during close reading prep - my teacher used to retype a serious piece in comic sans and see how we reacted differently to it.

It's Times New Roman really pisses me the heck off. It creates a visual disturbance because of its shape (it's true).

[fossil971]

I've been sent some marketing email from a local attraction to comment on their new website . They've splashed a font called "" all over it. AIBU to think this is a clumsy pastiche of Johnston? There's something jarring about it but I can't put my finger on it.

[fossil971]

London Between temporary amnesia on doing links there!

[GetOrfMoiLand]

I have read comic sans hatred threads on mumsnet before.

What do you mean by visual disturbance lrd?

[stargirl1701]

YABU. It is an excellent font for young children learning to read.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Forgive me, but I didn't get further on that site before clicking on 'Old English' and letting the steam pour out of my ears.

I know it shouldn't matter, but possibly calling things 'gothic' or 'Old English' when they are Victorian pastiche is why I still hear of undergradutes who are disappointed we're not going to do Shakespeare in the High Medieval course.

[changeforthebetter]

Really, Citrusyone? I have often used it in class and am glad that it helps dyslexic students.

[Shakey1500]

Haven't read the whole thread so bite me apologies if this has already been posted...

www.google.co.uk/search?q=comic+sans&hl=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=4-WEUcyzKqSm0AWXw4HgCg&sqi=2&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=643#imgrc=yqitvlv0Cnk3mM%3A%3BOUc_AuBR0bY2oM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Flaughingsquid.com%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252Fcomic-sans-20100721-113559.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Flaughingsquid.com%252Fplease-dont-use-comic-sans%252F%3B500%3B667

[Shakey1500]

Ooh that's a bit long isn't it?

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

getorf - it's really cool actually. I've not kept up with the research, but about four/five years ago, someone was publishing about it all.

Basically, you know how vertical black-and-white stripes can bother some people with epilepsy and similar, especially if they're moving their eyes across them? Well, they do.

Actually, they bother most of us to a greater or lesser degree, it's just most of us don't really notice too much.

Now some fonts are made up of shapes such that, when you're looking at them out of the corner of your eye, they're resolving into a set of shadowy stripes. You don't even realize this - when we read, we do a huge number of things we don't know we're doing, as you can see by tracking someone's eye movements (people pause and look ahead or back, when to all intents and purposes they're reading perfectly smoothly, because the pauses and glances only take such a tiny fraction of time).

As you read a large amount of a font that has a pronounced, regular vertical emphasis, you struggle against this slight visual disturbance.

People read such fonts more slowly in tests.

What is really fascinating is, they thought they were reading perfectly well, even quickly, and saw the regularity of the font as something good.

When tested against a font designed (like script) to have more irregularity and less vertical emphasis, they read faster, but didn't believe it - they associated the irregularity as something that would disturb them.

I trace it back to (proper, real) gothic script developed in monasteries. I won't go into why, but basically, back then in made sense, because you wanted people to read very slowly. Now, we don't, but we're still stuck with something not dissimilar to scripts developed 500 years ago, really.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Ahem.

'Cool' it probably isn't.

[MinnieBar]

That's really interesting LRD.

Yes, there's definitely been a thread on this before. But then nearly all threads have been done in some way before (except the dead father in the house for five days one - that's a shocker!). Mumsnet is suffering from recursion and will implode due to repeated threads. Probably.

[GetOrfMoiLand]

That is fascinating lrd. And might explain my utter loathing of times new roman.

Years so I used to work for a very old fashioned man who used to make me use times new roman or fucking Garamond in SPREADSHEETS.

[GetOrfMoiLand]

And in access. Access of the worst programme in the world. And then you stick a serif font in it to drive you mad.