No doubt you’ve heard that Comic Sans, a font that’s been with us for 25 years, is to be despised. I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration. True, it is very informal, even childlike, but it was meant to be. It was designed to be used in the speech bubbles of cartoons. And for that purpose, it serves quite well. Perhaps we should not despise the font itself but rather, its use or misuse by those who don’t know any better.
An excellent example of misuse is this letter from Attorney John Dowd (Trump’s former lawyer) stating that Rudy Giuliani’s associates would not be appearing before the House Select Committee on Intelligence:
As you can see, it’s printed in Comic Sans. Looks like ol’ Lev and Igor picked themselves a top-notch attorney. Even if we were gracious enough to assume Dowd’s secretary administrative assistant selected the font and printed the letter, it still bears his signature. It was obviously in front of him at least for a moment. Or perhaps not. I suppose it could be an electronic signature appended by said assistant.
Nevertheless, it sort of typifies the Trump administration, doesn’t it? Lots of money and power, but absolutely no taste or understanding of cultural norms.
Mama always said you can’t buy class.
I think the Comic Sans hate is overblown; it’s a very legible font that makes it excellent for cartoons, scripts, etc. It’s not ideal for professional applications like letters from attorneys (unless those attorneys are Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, who I’m sure would fake being dead to avoid representing anyone associated with this administration). C’mon, dude, at least try Helvetica if you’re anti-serif!!!! 😉
I agree. I think a lot of people who say they hate Comic Sans probably don’t even know what a font is and wouldn’t recognize Comic Sans if you hit them in the face with it. On the other hand, if you’re going to communicate via computer, you should at least know some of the customary fonts.
Very true. Palatino is one of my favorites, as is Times, but I’ve been known to use Comic Sans and similar fonts for some things when appropriate … sometimes because I want to annoy the haters. 😏
Ah, Palatino. One of my favorites, too. In the journal I used to manage I used Palatino and Optima. I was using Palatino on my blog until I discovered that on one browser it wasn’t rendering as true Palatino so I dropped it.
Annoying haters?? Who would do a thing like that?? 😉
Actually, I imagine a secretary typed it up and chose that font. But I’m surprised it wasn’t reviewed and she/he told to change the font.
However it happened, it shouldn’t have.
Agreed. No one was double-checking a doc that definitely should have been. Or they’re too stupid to know not to use Comic Sans font for ANYTHING.
I agree you’d have to be a cave dweller to have missed all the criticism of Comic Sans. There are proper places for it (“Comic” is a big hint), but certainly not in Washington for official business. (Admittedly Washington these days seems like an ongoing comic strip.)