NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Premium
Home / Lifestyle

Hating Comic Sans is not a personality

By Emma Goldberg
New York Times·
9 Oct, 2019 11:47 PM5 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Even the creator of Comic Sans thinks the font is a joke - but he's tired of the tweets. Photo / File

Even the creator of Comic Sans thinks the font is a joke - but he's tired of the tweets. Photo / File

Vincent Connare, the creator of Comic Sans, has something to say about his Frankenstein-like font: "If you love Comic Sans you don't know much about typography. And if you hate Comic Sans you need a new hobby."

Of all the things people love to hate — Mondays, the Kardashians, candy corn, Nickelback — few evoke the scorn and indignation of what Connare affectionately calls "the Justin Bieber of fonts." The depth of the internet's distaste for Comic Sans was on full display this week, when an attorney representing two of Rudy Giuliani's associates informed Congress that his clients wouldn't comply with the impeachment inquiry demands, with a letter printed in that widely derided type.

Here's the letter (yes it's Comic Sans) indicating that Rudy Giuliani's associates will not be appearing or providing documents this week.

Attorney John Dowd (Trump's former lawyer) argues the timeframe is too short and info could be attorney-client privileged. pic.twitter.com/3ytCecrPHv

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) October 7, 2019

The font quickly trended on Twitter. At least one user recommended the lawyer be disbarred. But Connare said he believed that the attorney knew what he was doing by using a divisive font. Where legal documents are often written in Courier, Comic Sans scoffs at what's politically correct.

"It's like, 'Not only am I going to refuse to submit these documents, but I'm going to use a typeface that doesn't submit to the solemnity of the law, and Congress and public institutions," said Michael Bierut, a partner at the design firm Pentagram. "Or maybe he just likes Comic Sans. It's hard to say. Few typefaces are this freighted with public opinion."

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

But strongly held beliefs can be unifying. Holly Combs, 43, fell in love with her husband, David Combs, 20 years ago over their shared contempt for Comic Sans.

"He told me it was his goal to learn every typeface, and I was like, 'That's so sexy,'" Combs said. When a local art gallery gave her a work assignment in Comic Sans, the pair bonded over their mutual distaste for what they deemed the "least thoughtful" font. "He was like, 'What if we ban Comic Sans?' and I said, 'Wow, we're spending the rest of our lives together.'"

The pair went so far as to publish an anti-Comic Sans manifesto online and began selling a line of products. They affixed stickers to walls and billboards around their hometown boasting the slogan: "Ban Comic Sans."

Born in October 1994, Comic Sans would now be eligible for its quarter-life crisis — if it hadn't spent its first 25 years in an identity crisis. The idea for the font came when Connare was helping to develop an easy-to-use operating system for Microsoft. While sketching a talk bubble for "a cute little yellow dog," Connare had an epiphany: "Dogs don't talk in Times New Roman!" He decided the program needed a new font, zanier and more childlike, for which he took inspiration from comic books and graphic novels.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

From its inception, the font attracted eye rolls and outright pitchfork attacks. Connare's boss, Bob Norton, wasn't a fan of it and axed it from the ill-fated program, called Microsoft Bob. But the font lived on in a Windows 95 Plus! pack. Paige Shelton, author of the mystery "Comic Sans Murder," set in a fictional typewriter repair shop, said that when the font was released "all Helvetica broke loose."

Comic Sans is what Shelton calls "a fun-times font," manspreading across paper in strokes thicker than fair Cambria or no-nonsense Garamond. (Bierut said Helvetica, by contrast, is "a call from HR.") The spacing, or kerning, between its letters is uneven because it wasn't designed for print.

To type traditionalists, use of the font can signify frivolity or even disrespect. The website Comic Sans Criminal allows people to report its inappropriate uses (see: a sex offender registry, a doctor's diagnosis). In 2010, a Twitter employee shared that the site's two most reliable sources of traffic are complaints about airlines and Comic Sans.

Bierut said that Comic Sans has long been "the default punchline in the design community." Because it's meant to simulate the handwriting process, it can come off as inauthentic, he explained, like a packaged cookie when you expected homemade. It is "willfully idiosyncratic," with its crooked lines and unevenly distributed weight.

"It reads like a Mickey Mouse cartoonish voice," Bierut said. "It has this weird sense of dislocation."

But the Comic Sans hatred was never universal. Ty, the maker of Beanie Babies, used it. So did Electronic Arts Games, creator of The Sims. Scientists at CERN used the font in a landmark presentation about the Higgs boson particle, and Dan Gilbert, owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, used it to thank LeBron James for his service.

It is also recommended by the British Dyslexia Association. In a post on its website, the American Institute of Graphic Arts said Comic Sans helps readers with disabilities because of its "character disambiguation" and "variation in letter heights."

In May, Combs decided that the "Ban Comic Sans" project had "gotten out of hand" and changed his Facebook group's name to "Use Comic Sans." "It's gotten to be so bad that it's almost cool again," he said. (His wife disagrees.)

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Connare said he's used the font he created once in the last two decades, to write a letter of complaint about his broadband. The company gave him a refund of 10 pounds. "It certainly gets you attention," he said.

Written by: Emma Goldberg

© 2019 THE NEW YORK TIMES

Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Latest from Lifestyle

Lifestyle

Boss’ insane text to gym members about ‘young women’ rule

Lifestyle

King Charles' unprecedented Trump move

Opinion

Watch: Has Whittaker's gone bananas with new limited-edition block?


Sponsored

Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Lifestyle

Boss’ insane text to gym members about ‘young women’ rule
Lifestyle

Boss’ insane text to gym members about ‘young women’ rule

A gymgoer has shared the text about the age-related policy, suggesting it is 'ridiculous'.

14 Jul 02:04 AM
King Charles' unprecedented Trump move
Lifestyle

King Charles' unprecedented Trump move

14 Jul 01:14 AM
Watch: Has Whittaker's gone bananas with new limited-edition block?
Opinion

Watch: Has Whittaker's gone bananas with new limited-edition block?

13 Jul 10:00 PM


Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper
Sponsored

Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper

01 Jul 04:58 PM
NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP