Quote:
Originally Posted by Uncle Robin
There's a thread about this on Bluesky atm, reminding me of the enduring mystery about this - why do people hate it? I mean, I wouldn't want to read a book in it, but it's just a font, it ain't butchering babies or poisoning pristine lakes. The depth of feeling it provokes utterly bewilders me. Then again, I don't care about kerning either.  |
Really wanna know?
The absurdity of Designer snobbery. That's pretty much
it in a nutshell. And it's not just poor old Comic Sans that gets hosed this way--even tho Old CS is actually highly readable, especially for young people and those with vision issues--other fonts like Bleeding Cowboys, Papyrus, etc. all get this sort of sneering disdain.
Why? WHY? Is it due to some horrible typographic disaster that the foundry created? Is it due to some big dark secret (like Gill Sans' creator's behavior) harbored? Anything like that? Noooooo..
HELL NO. It's because speaking bluntly, it lost its cool. It lost its cool because at one point in time, designers had it, found it, used it, loved it. And then, suddenly--gasp!!!--they're walking down the street, feeling smug in their design-trained sensibility, and the superiority of their taste levels, how they know how to deploy white space and all that, and they glance over at the sandwich board menu sitting in front of that new chi-chi pub and...OMG! OHMYGOD, the owner used...gasp, BLEEDING COWBOYS for the menu! The Hoi Polloi found and used the font!
REGULAR EVERYDAY PEOPLE USED IT! And then, right then, right here, the font loses its cachet, its uniquity, the coolness factor of being
beloved of the In Crowd, Cafe Society, the Beau monde...and the typeface immediately starts being pushed over Niagara Falls and derided everywhere--
everywhere--it is espied. You are snickered at, laughed at,
chastised, by designers, if you use it.
The sneering condescension then commences more widely, aimed at the Mom and Pop stores, the companies with their own websites, you-name-it. And that's the story. Nothing more--and
nothing less.
Once the "little people" start using it, a font's (typeface to be accurate) popularity is over. At least, by the hoity-toity designers that consider themselves above and beyond the regular folks.
Th-tha-tha-that's all, folks.
Hitch