Comic Sans. Next to Helvetica, it’s probably one of the most well known fonts of western civilization. It’s know not because of its elegance or exceptional design, but because it is undisputedly the most hated (but quite possibly one of the most widely used) fonts ever developed. There are websites dedicated entirely to trash-talking Comic Sans. I even have a sticker on my desk that fellow Mad Monkey designer Steven Olexa found on the street and gave to me that reads, “Friends don’t let friends use Comic Sans…”.
But this article isn’t about Comic Sans. That poor font has suffered enough. I want to talk to you about a font that has crept into society quietly, masquerading itself as chic, creative and even progressive. If you haven’t guessed it by now, I’m talking about Papyrus, and it’s slowly taking over Comic Sans’ territory.
Some may not know this font by its name, but you’ve seen it before. Just look to almost any antique store, religious pamphlet, cafe menu, apartment complex sign, rock band, pool store, restaurant menu, wedding invitation, corporate presentation…even the movie Avatar used it for its subtitles. And therein lies the problem.
What do these things have in common? Why is it that they are all using the same font to represent their business? They all must have the same target audience, right? Chris Costello, the creator of the font, says his goal was to create a font that would represent what English language texts would have looked like if written on papyrus 2000 years ago. Just like people, fonts have personalities that need to be treated with respect and paired with their respective environments; something tells me you wouldn’t typically find a Dead Head attending a thrash metal concert. So if this font is being used on a smooth, white background, you’re missing the point and it just looks out of place.
In reality, as with Comic Sans, we’re not really hating on the font itself (well, maybe a little). We’re hating the ways and the amount that it’s misused. Chris Costello deserves respect for what he made in 1982 – one of, if not the first, textured digital fonts. But it’s not 1982 anymore and it’s time to step into the new digital era. Visit www.dafont.com or www.fontspace.com and find yourself an elegant calligraphy font that you can actually read at small sizes. Maybe consider a nice sans serif that you texturize in photoshop yourself since pre-textured fonts look fake most of the time. As always, if you really know what you’re doing, you can bend the rules and even sometimes break them. But a child with a gun is a child with a gun and that’s just a bad idea. So you don’t shoot your eye out, leave it to the professionals to make your business stand out above the competition or stick with Helvetica for your next presentation.
