However it's bizzarely useful in a way. Say you've got a trail version of an application, you can have a penalty of users who run the app for more than a month without a purchase. Simply flick the font in to Comic Sans. You gain geek credit, even some free blog advertising under the Comic Sans lol bandwagon.
That then creates more posative feedback, people like to read things they are already vaugely familiar with, so you get that natural circle of hate.
I disagree, it's just not a good font. It has zero contrast (not suitable for display text and print), no harmony (not suitable for body text), and it's poorly hinted (not suitable for screen text). It looks more like finger painting than comic lettering [1]. It's not even a true sans serif; in the article, the author admits to cheating.
There are way better fonts that Microsoft could've licensed for MS Bob, like Helvetica Rounded [2] or Dom Casual [3].
[1] http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/hanoded/inky-fingers/
So, I'm just going to call you out on a few things. I might not know all about typography, but I do know quite a bit. I would say more than the average person, so if I don't get what you mean really, it's probably a good idea to expand on it, if you stand behind those statements. And if I got the wrong ideas from your short critique, please do educate us, I'm always willing to learn.
Hinting. Can you give me an example of how it's poorly hinted? From what I've always seen, Comic Sans is actually hinted rather well, and in my opinion actually gets better at smaller point sizes (mainly because with less pixels the shapes and kerning become more regular).
Contrast. Now about the zero contrast, I suppose what you really meant is that the lines are all equal thickness, which is something different than "contrast" because you're going to have appearance of heavier weight at the connections of the lines, which is why Helvetica and Arial actually have varying stroke widths, to give the appearance of uniform weight. You can argue this gives Comic Sans bad or uneven contrast, and I'd be inclined to agree. But zero contrast doesn't make sense to me when referring to Comic Sans.
Additionally, how does this automatically disqualify a font from print or display? Especially really large display, I've seen it in large rainbow coloured logos at children's daycare centres, and it works just fine there.
Harmony. I did some Googling to make sure, but the only typographical meaning of the term "harmony" that I've been able to find is the one that I already knew, and it's not something you can attribute to a font. It's to do with the rhythm and contrasts of spacing and weights (and more) on a page or part of a page. You can say it's hard to make a harmonious design with Comic Sans, but you cannot say Comic Sans does not "have" harmony.
I do agree it's not particularly suitable for body text (unless you happen to have dyslexia, but there's prettier fonts that help there, unfortunately they're not free).
(Sans) serif. Not a true sans-serif, how is this bad? The author explains his choice and I think that particular choice was a great one. In today's digital world, differences between Il|1 can be crucial, and can't always be inferred from context, most typographical conventions followed out of a need for medium-specific legibility, and I'm afraid you're going to have to deal with the fact that mixing serif and sans-serif is now a valid design choice.
I still don't particularly like Comic Sans myself either, but for different reasons (that I explained elsewhere in this thread).
Which is beside the point. It wasn't supposed to be used for body text or print in small sizes. And it doesn't have to be hinted because it's not meant to be used for long form screen text.
Would you call a title font "bad" because it's not suitable for body text?
As for it "not even being a true sans serif", there are several fonts that cross those boundaries while being perfectly fine. Not being a true "sans/serif" is not some badge of dishonour.
Comic Sans is a good font because it is perfectly suited to convey the message people use it for: child-like, friendliness, common folk-syness etc. As such it's great for personal posters, party invitations, signs, yard sales, elementary school signs, etc.
Notice that even if that wasn't the usage intended by its creators, it's still a good font, because it found it's own niche.
The case against Comic Sans in undue context is due to the funny glyphs, while the case against Comic Sans vs other comic fonts is due not to the glyphs but to the whitespace around them.
This whitespace and keming problems though might add to the naive appeal of the font. Like, for example, bad perspective and distorted proportions make a drawing more child-like.
Is that a typographical pun?
So, if you're designing for kids, these things seem to matter less. Perhaps there's a better alternative not explored (marker felt, etc.) but there are use cases for these typefaces that adults disagree with for technical reasons.
The kids did indicate they found Comic Sans most attractive, but their options were limited to Times, Courier, Arial and Comic Sans. I'm willing to bet that if Comic Sans had been substituted by any other cartoon or paintbrush font, the result would've been the same.
Because kids can't read at high speeds yet, sans serif fonts at large sizes work best for them. That's why so many K-8 schoolbooks and illustrated children's books use Gill Sans [1], a much better font for the purpose, in my opinion.
I ought to have, (but didn't heed) your warning, and you are so right! Now I am really torn! At what point does one disassociate the person(ality) from the art? (similar to any discussion on Wagner's works today!)
>> it may well put you off using his fonts
I believe you are very right there! I am actually pretty pissed off with the man and his works now!
I don't understand what this means, could you clarify please?
I love your Surrey Police links and comments. I'm not sure if it's in poor taste to laugh, but frankly I find them hysterical!
Actually, as a band you have a certain say in which fans you'll going to have.
Plus it's not as if metal bands were against 'glamming' up in the first place. In fact it became it's own sub-genre.
You're joking right? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoiUpe7N3D0
In the transportation world, all-caps is known to be harder to read than mixed-case in fixed-message signs:
http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/5892/is-all-caps...
All-caps is also generally less legible than all-lower-case:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_caps (in particular reference 7, Tinker, Miles A. (1963). Legibility of Print. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press. p. 65. ISBN 6316674.)
My point is that it isn't just a matter of taste. There are known, quantified ways in which all-caps is worse. Ditto Comic Sans, if you read another response to your post.
http://clearviewhwy.com/ResearchAndDesign/legibilityStudies....
Just like a good band with bad fans, we don't balk at Comic Sans, we balk at the people who use comic sans for inappropriate things. (Or to use a more computery analogy, there's nothing wrong with capital letters or all-caps, but some users use them inappropriately).
City memo minutes should not be distributed in Comic Sans. Wedding invitations should probably not be in Comic Sans. The Surrey police should not have released a memo on rape and sexual assault in Comic Sans[1].
There are times when you do not want to be unserious and insincere, and some people are, and its embarrassing. Comic Sans is just a vector for that, but if you find fault with it, its still the people who are at fault.
[1] http://i.imgur.com/C6QY1yp.jpg
(The Surrey Police strike again! http://i.imgur.com/Kn68ubk.jpg)
(the compulsive designers in us will notice the logo at the top of that one is off-center, too)