Complex Numbers

The Sans of Time

Today, we have an article from Fast Company about something of great worldwide import.

    How Comic Sans became the Crocs of fonts  
After 30 years of abuse, Comic Sans is ready for its redemption.

Objection! Comic Sans never deserved the opprobrium heaped upon it by self-proclaimed font snobs, whereas Crocs deserve every criticism and then more on top of that.

Comic Sans has turned 30, and it’s done being your punch line.

I have long said that it should be the Official Sarcasm Font of the Internet.

For three whole decades, Comic Sans cowered at your reproaches and winced at your jokes.

That's obviously poetic license, but I have occasionally wondered how the anticomicsans vitriol might have affected the poor, innocent font creator.

It barely flinched when Google’s practical joke made sure that searching for “Helvetica” would render all results in Comic Sans.

Okay, I hadn't heard of that, but that's legitimately hilarious.

But Comic Sans has just hit the big 3-0—and it’s ready for its second act.

Great, make the rest of us feel even older than we are.

Don’t take it from us. Take it from various studies that have been done on the subject of “turning 30.” And from the three experts who contributed to this story and said that turning 30 marks a period of introspection and change.

And this is where it goes from whimsical poetic license to stretching a metaphor beyond its elastic limit. But, whatever, I'm entertained.

For starters, Comic Sans wants you to know it wasn’t ever meant to be taken seriously. Vincent Connare, who was then a typographic engineer working at Microsoft, created the typeface in 1994.

Well, that answers part of my musing above, musing that never reached the level of "why don't I just google it?"

Most of us were blissfully offline back then, so Microsoft had devised a program called Microsoft Bob to teach people how to use computers.

I'm pretty sure 1994 was the year I first obtained an internet provider. But I'd been using computers for at least 15 years before that, both for work and recreation.

Well, "recreation" included learning how to code, which, let me tell you, was a lot harder to do before the internet. We had to buy books.

It also included playing early video games, which is why I'm not good at coding to this day.

Comic Sans was inspired by the comic books Connare had lying around in his office.

Hence the name. I always figured it was from comic books, not funny-ha-ha comics.

Comic Sans appeared on restaurant menus, funeral announcements, official government letters, bumper stickers, business signs—so many places, in fact, that there’s a popular subreddit on the topic. Even the Vatican used it in 2013 to commemorate Pope Benedict XVI.

Like I said, I don't hate the font, but if I saw it everywhere, I'd learn to. Like with Crocs.

The boom continued well into the early aughts...

Noughties, dammit!

...at which point Microsoft released a licensed version of Comic Sans in 2010.

And the hate might also have spilled over from a generalized dislike of Microsoft, who have definitely made some... questionable... design decisions. Like Clippy.

Over the past few years, the font has become a favorite among people with dyslexia because “the letters can appear less crowded” and “it uses few repeated shapes, creating distinct letters.”

I'd heard that the font was originally designed to be dyslexic-friendly. Perhaps that was fake news. Designed that way or not, it seems to be so. Perhaps some people got less vocal about their distaste for CS for fear of being labeled ableist.

Like the Eiffel Tower (which drew a slew of protests while it was still in construction), or that Mariah Carey Christmas album, the typeface has become nothing short of iconic. (Though we can agree to disagree on the Mariah front.)

Oh, yeah, damn right we disagree. I have no hate for Mariah Carey and acknowledge that she's talented, but that album is about 70% of the reason I don't go out in public in December.

Today, Comic Sans is the Crocs of fonts. First we hated it, then we loved to hate it, now we kinda, maybe love it because we’re experiencing it through a different lens.

"We" my ass.

My issues with the writing, and the author's questionable taste in music and footwear, aside, I'm glad to see Comic Sans finally getting some... well, not love, exactly, but less hate.

I still say it should become the Sarcasm Font, but no one listens to me.