Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Join the Font Revolution....

I just love finding out that there are people as crazy as you. I got an email from Christy Childers today telling me about Helvetica's 50th birthday. You are thinking, "what is Helvetica?". Oh yes, its a font my friend. Here is my confession:

I love fonts.


I don't know why but a font can make or break something for me. You walk into a restaurant that appears nice and read the menu, and its a cheesy font, and I'm thinking "why bother".

So the font that gets me the most is Comic Sans. Every time I see it, I get agitated. Okay, a little extreme, but you get the point. The worst part is - people use it all the time. School posters, menus, letterhead, signage! You might not believe me, but you will notice it now (or not, because you aren't crazy like me). In any case, the BBC article mentioned that in Canada there is an "ban comic sans" coalition! There is a website that sells ani-comic sans stickers and memorabilia. There is even a flickr group with pictures of the font's flagrant misuses. The slogan: "putting the sans back in comic sans". Soo geeky, and sooo great.

10 comments:

Rick Vugteveen said...

If you want to sound athoratative talk about Typography, not fonts Sharelle... j/k

I love Helvitica as well. There's even a documentary about the typeface, which is most used and abused ever. Do you know that Arial on Windows is actually a direct copy of Helvetica?

While you're at it (if you're feeling really dorky) check out Univers, Frutiger, Avenir, DIN, Garamoud and Caslon, which are my favorite "fonts" at moment.

Rick

theRachel said...

only you, Sharelle. Well, i guess you and Rick.

chRistie said...

You need to meet my friend Zach. He is a lover of fonts. We just had a ridiculous discussion about fonts yesterday in between talking about Dostoyevsky.

And just FYI? Arial isn't a direct copy of Helvetica. The "R"s are different.

:)

Ben S. said...

i feel this way about times new roman. the font i always always use at school is century gothic because the "a"s are normal for kids to read and not these weird ones. i've never noticed a lot of comic sans out there though i know it...i'll keep an eye out. haha.

the tapered pant said...

sharelle. I do recall a conversation between me and you regarding one of your friends who would walk down the street and inform you of fonts used on billboards. And we HATED him, for rants' sake. ...my how times have changed. You do realize I have to go to church now and talk about how my friend's blog post was about fonts...iii love you kid.

Zach Bulick said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Zach Bulick said...

Comic Sans isn't nearly as bad as Papyrus! Yuk! Hi I am said friend Zach. You should check out Ellen Lupton's book "Thinking with Type"
Probably one of the best typography books out there.

keep banning comic sans.

chRistie said...

We saw you driving to TWU this morning. If you have class at 8:30, you were most definitely not on time. :)

Hooray summer school.

Spiro said...

confession:
i use comic sans for worship music overheads at camp. Easy to read, i'm telling you.

SLASH

i think it might be because my highschool crush used the font on instant messenger.

wow. double confession. on the web.

Kathryn Dechant said...

Ha ha! Spiro I loved that comment. I must confess when I was a kid I LOVED the comic sans. It just seemed so... modern. But I have definately reformed. It completely irritates me now. You are going to love this: My cousin just mailed out her wedding invitations, and guess which font she used. I am not even kidding you!