I wonder, is there any tool that measures the similarity of letters / glyphs(?) in a font, specifically as a way to highlight ambiguous letters? That might be handy when designing or choosing a font for coding.
I've also received comments that my writing looks like an actual font, so I tried finding one on the font identification sites, but none of them are really a close match; a good description of it would be "calligraphic version of Times New Roman".
But I learned my lesson and never slashed my zeroes again.
If you print a warning sign, the choice of Comic Sans (or Papyrus etc.) is incompatible with the message you wanna express. If you use Comic Sans for a childrens birthday invitation or well – a Comic – then your choice of font fits the message you are communicating.
Most Fonts that aren’t simple serif or sans-serif fonts add an additional message to the message you are conveying. Something neutral like an Helvetica/Arial/Calibri will not be perceived as conveying any additional context.
So fancy fonts essentially get into the way of your message if you don’t know what you are doing and this is the way Comic Sans got it’s reputation.
Additionally Comic Sans isn’t even that good of a Comic font to be honest..
If you are the sort that is excessively bothered by our use of the comic-sans typeface. Then perhaps you are not a good fit for our project.
More and more, I see the the continued use of cvs as sort of the same thing. It works and it weeds out people who care more about how something is done then what is done.
That was 17 years ago.
People still using CVS in 2019 and not taking advantage of Meta-CVS are in a pretty special category.
This is sounds awesome. Would you suggest CVS or SVN for new deployments?
http://www.kylheku.com/~kaz/mcvs.html
I added the missing 1.1.98 tarball. Also, just tagged 1.2 which picks up some subsequent changes. (Last time anything was touched was 2014).
I wouldn't recommend CVS or SVN for any new deployments.
Even with Meta-CVS, CVS still sucks at the infrastructural level: the branching model and so on.
Meta-CVS has better support than Git for tracking changes in the directory structure, but that's not enough to offset the downside of being based on CVS.
Someone should port Meta-CVS to Git.
This is exactly what happened to me. I was thinking about installing OpenBSD, but then watched a presentation were Theo used Comic Sans and it put me off the whole project. The thing is: every OS has specific details turning me away from them: Linux, the BSDs, Windows, Android, MacOS.
Maybe I should stop using computers altogether, or maybe I should go with the flow and accept that everything and everyone in this world is mediocre and being a perfectionist is a fatal weakness.
Then, they turn perfectionism on when it comes to their output. They make sure their writing is impeccable and that communication is clear, precise, and efficient.
Unfocused perfectionism is a curse. It's a cause or a symptom of self-sabotage. Probably both.
I doubt most people who use it do so because they know it will make it easier for people with dyslexia to read. My mother uses it all the time because she thinks its cute.
(Tunes come back around. They get so worn out, and "institutionalized" people stop actually playing them for fun. Then, if they fade back into obscurity, another generation can "discover" them again.)
https://www.caseyconnect.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media...
When to use Comic Sans:
https://www.caseyconnect.com/blog/2013/typography/comic-sans...
>The Sims Comic Sans in-game text
>Because of it's lighthearted nature, Comic Sans might be appropriate for design situations where humor or lack of seriousness is appropriate. One example of this is the simulation game The Sims, where Comic Sans was used for all in-game text. Materials appropriate for children might also benefit from the use of Comic Sans.
In case you can't stand to read Comic Sans with your own eyes, I also made an external screen scraping utility called Simplifier that reads Comic Sans text off the screen, and catalogs and recites the product descriptions with a speech synthesizer.
Demo of The Sims Transmogrifier, RugOMatic, ShowNTell, Simplifier and Slice City:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Imu1v3GecB8
I recently dug up an early internal pre-release demo of it for "The Sims Steering Committee" from June 4 1998, that convinced EA not to cancel our project. It shows a very early version of the user interface, that was already using Comic Sans. (So did the Quick Start Guide.)
The Sims Steering Committee - June 4 1998:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC52jE60KjY
(Notice last word of the second paragraph of the Level 4 scenario description at 1:00! ;) Maybe the fact that it was written in Comic Sans enabled that little boo-boo to fly under the radar.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Comic_Chat
>Microsoft Comic Chat installed a custom font, Comic Sans MS, that users could use in other applications and documents. In 1996 it was bundled with several other fonts in Microsoft's Core Fonts for the Web project and subsequent versions of Microsoft Windows, leading to its notoriety among the internet.
https://chrisgliddon.com/a-trip-down-memory-lane-microsoft-c...
>While Microsoft’s Comic Sans was first introduced in 1995 as part of a Windows 95 Plus Pack, the font was more likely cemented into many people’s minds for one or two reasons: 1) well-meaning, yet not-necessarily-design-savvy educators, and 2) being selected as the default font in a new internet chat application called Microsoft Comic Chat.
E.g. it is more likely to get an funeral invitation in Comic Sans than to hear the musical equivalent of Comic Sans on a funeral (assuming both was selected by a relative).
People are extremely careless in their use of fonts and don’t think about the additional context their font choice carries to anybody reading. A bit like people who write with capslock on and don’t even think about how this changes how their message is perceived on the other end.
And Comic Sans is the cristalization of that phenomena, precisely because it is so recognizeable: nobody cares if you write all lowercase after all.
I picked an appropriate font, aligned things a bit in the layout and made good use of a couple of white space. 5min job, minor tweaks, zero copy changes.
Suddenly he got loads of positive replies to his applications.
The target crowd was not one aware of typography nor design knowledge. The volume of applications was also entering the realm of statistically significant.
TVTropes calls this phenomenon "Seinfeld Isn't Funny".
People hate the faked personal touch of a canned font that imitates writing which looks the same everywhere, letter for letter, no matter who produces the writing.
There is a middle ground: you can turn your own handwriting into a font.
No thanks. If my writing were turned into a font, it would be called Illegibilissimus. Keyboard for me whenever possible.
I even do my math with a keyboard using Macdown and Moeditor in real time. Don't even write by hand then.
And like kindergarten material, the chord symbols in good music charts are printed big.
If you can find me an actual study on this, you'll be the first. The claim appears to be a common myth: https://www.tes.com/news/does-comic-sans-help-dyslexic-learn...
It's really really really terrible for anything else.
That's your opinion. https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/im-comic-sans-asshole
Comic Sans are the equivalent of office calendar quotes like: “You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps”.
If this is the message you wanna get across, it is the perfect choice. For most other messages there are other more appropriate fonts (many of which can also be quite funky).
Comic Sans was my favourite font when I was 8 and made birthday invitations using it tho.
> more appropriate fonts
There are only two things that determine the appropriateness of a font:
1) Readability
2) The aesthetic desire of the person writing the message
Nobody ever says that Comic Sans isn't readable, generally readability is considered to be one of its virtues. People just think that the aesthetic desire of the reader should triumph over the aesthetic desire of the writer, and there they are wrong.
"Dyslexie font does not benefit reading in children with or without dyslexia"
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11881-017-0154-...
God dammit, now you're making me wonder!
Shower thought: are dyslexics just multicore literates?
One particularly useful property, especially in the education sector, is that dyslexics typically find it decidedly easier to read. Comic Sans uses distinct shapes for each character, e.g. no 'p' rotated to be 'q', and a variety of different sizes, all of which help make it easier for dyslexics.
AIGA article on the subject: https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/sad-but-true-comic-sans-might-j...
From a bit by the British Dyslexic Association: https://bdatech.org/what-technology/typefaces-for-dyslexia/ Studies showed the following characteristics as being desired:
* Good ascenders and descenders, b, d, f, h, k, l, t, and all capitals; g, j, p, q, y. * b and d; p and q distinguished, not mirror images. * Different forms for capital I, lowercase l and digit 1. * Rounded g as in handwriting. Most liked rounded a, although perhaps some felt that it may be confused with o. * Letter-spacing, e.g. r, n together rn should not look like m, (‘modern’ may scan as, or sound like, ‘modem’.)
And their summary on Comic Sans MS: "It meets all dyslexic ‘likes’ except mirrored b and d."