>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).

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.

I found the last example pretty convincing: I did not recognise Chalkboard, and the first part seemed readable to me to the point I said myself "Well, Comic Sans is not so bad finally"... and then the last line instantly jumped at me due to kerning and baseline. Comic Sans glyphs seem to each stand on their own, unable to keep themselves together to form a word. Chalkboard is far from perfect (see k-e kern) but it is way more readable, even for small text or stand-alone words.

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.

>Comic Sans glyphs seem to each stand on their own, unable to keep themselves together to form a word. 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.

> keming

Is that a typographical pun?

I'm not sure if it's technically a pun, but it's definitely a typographical joke.

Absolutely. This is most probably wanted in the second graphic example, where the lo-fi aspect and the collage of pictures from different sources would make any form of rigor look uncanny.

You can make a lot of arguments against Comic Sans but these are either not the right ones, or you're going to need to back them up with some explanations what you really mean (because merely stating typographic jargon doesn't make it factual).

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).

Studies show kids prefer Comic Sans for screen reading vs. common serif and sans-serif fonts (namely, Arial, Times, Courier). They prefer it for both appearance and readability: http://t.co/P3ebZjUi

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 study you linked to found that kids read text set in Arial and Comic Sans at the same speed.

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.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gill_Sans

I use Gill Sans on Presentations! Interesting bit of trivia/factoid about Gill Sans!

If you want interesting trivia, try the "personal life" section of Eric Gill's Wikipedia article though I warn you, it may well put you off using his fonts.

That bit of trivia about the font creator (as opposed to the font) I definitely didn't need to know. Blecchhh!

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!