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An Irish fiddler of some note once quipped, "What's the difference between a great tune and a hackneyed tune? About 20 years." (Tunes come back around. They ge

An Irish fiddler of some note once quipped, "What's the difference between a great tune and a hackneyed tune? About 20 years." (Tunes come back around. They get so worn out, and "institutionalized" people stop actually playing them for fun. Then, if they fade back into obscurity, another generation can "discover" them again.)

atoav 7y ago
The problem is that fonts (like tunes) can carry their own context with them. But people are very sensitive to music and very insensitive to fonts. E.g. it is more likely to get an funeral invitation in Comic Sans than to hear the musical equivalent of Comic Sans on a funeral (assuming both was selected by a relative). People are extremely careless in their use of fonts and don’t think about the additional context their font choice carries to anybody reading. A bit like people who write with capslock on and don’t even think about how this changes how their message is perceived on the other end. And Comic Sans is the cristalization of that phenomena, precisely because it is so recognizeable: nobody cares if you write all lowercase after all.
- lloeki 7y ago
  A good example of that is resumes. A friend thought his resume was good but could not understand why he got turned down every time he applied for a job. I picked an appropriate font, aligned things a bit in the layout and made good use of a couple of white space. 5min job, minor tweaks, zero copy changes. Suddenly he got loads of positive replies to his applications. The target crowd was not one aware of typography nor design knowledge. The volume of applications was also entering the realm of statistically significant.
DonHopkins 7y ago
Almost 20 years ago, we shipped a game called The Sims that used Comic Sans all throughout, that sold pretty well in spite of the font. Although maybe it's one reason some people are sick and tired of Comic Sans. https://www.caseyconnect.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/sims-comic-sans-300x170.jpg https://www.caseyconnect.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media... When to use Comic Sans: https://www.caseyconnect.com/blog/2013/typography/comic-sans-love-it-or-hate-it https://www.caseyconnect.com/blog/2013/typography/comic-sans... >The Sims Comic Sans in-game text >Because of it's lighthearted nature, Comic Sans might be appropriate for design situations where humor or lack of seriousness is appropriate. One example of this is the simulation game The Sims, where Comic Sans was used for all in-game text. Materials appropriate for children might also benefit from the use of Comic Sans. In case you can't stand to read Comic Sans with your own eyes, I also made an external screen scraping utility called Simplifier that reads Comic Sans text off the screen, and catalogs and recites the product descriptions with a speech synthesizer. Demo of The Sims Transmogrifier, RugOMatic, ShowNTell, Simplifier and Slice City: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Imu1v3GecB8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Imu1v3GecB8 I recently dug up an early internal pre-release demo of it for "The Sims Steering Committee" from June 4 1998, that convinced EA not to cancel our project. It shows a very early version of the user interface, that was already using Comic Sans. (So did the Quick Start Guide.) The Sims Steering Committee - June 4 1998: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC52jE60KjY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC52jE60KjY (Notice last word of the second paragraph of the Level 4 scenario description at 1:00! ;) Maybe the fact that it was written in Comic Sans enabled that little boo-boo to fly under the radar.)
- rafaelvasco 7y ago
  Absolutely. And it was the perfect font choice for The Sims. I really like Comic Sans when it's used in the right context.
  - DonHopkins 7y ago
    The other perfect application of Comic Sans was (wait for it....) Microsoft Comic Chat! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Comic_Chat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Comic_Chat >Microsoft Comic Chat installed a custom font, Comic Sans MS, that users could use in other applications and documents. In 1996 it was bundled with several other fonts in Microsoft's Core Fonts for the Web project and subsequent versions of Microsoft Windows, leading to its notoriety among the internet. https://chrisgliddon.com/a-trip-down-memory-lane-microsoft-comic-chat-6f23b8a64295 https://chrisgliddon.com/a-trip-down-memory-lane-microsoft-c... >While Microsoft’s Comic Sans was first introduced in 1995 as part of a Windows 95 Plus Pack, the font was more likely cemented into many people’s minds for one or two reasons: 1) well-meaning, yet not-necessarily-design-savvy educators, and 2) being selected as the default font in a new internet chat application called Microsoft Comic Chat.
    - hedora 7y ago
      MS Comic Chat is still my favorite IRC client, even if it is completely useless for communication these days.
bitwize 7y ago
> An Irish fiddler of some note once quipped, "What's the difference between a great tune and a hackneyed tune? About 20 years." TVTropes calls this phenomenon "Seinfeld Isn't Funny".

atoav 7y ago

The problem is that fonts (like tunes) can carry their own context with them. But people are very sensitive to music and very insensitive to fonts. E.g. it is more likely to get an funeral invitation in Comic Sans than to hear the musical equivalent of Comic Sans on a funeral (assuming both was selected by a relative). People are extremely careless in their use of fonts and don’t think about the additional context their font choice carries to anybody reading. A bit like people who write with capslock on and don’t even think about how this changes how their message is perceived on the other end. And Comic Sans is the cristalization of that phenomena, precisely because it is so recognizeable: nobody cares if you write all lowercase after all.

lloeki 7y ago
A good example of that is resumes. A friend thought his resume was good but could not understand why he got turned down every time he applied for a job. I picked an appropriate font, aligned things a bit in the layout and made good use of a couple of white space. 5min job, minor tweaks, zero copy changes. Suddenly he got loads of positive replies to his applications. The target crowd was not one aware of typography nor design knowledge. The volume of applications was also entering the realm of statistically significant.

DonHopkins 7y ago

Almost 20 years ago, we shipped a game called The Sims that used Comic Sans all throughout, that sold pretty well in spite of the font. Although maybe it's one reason some people are sick and tired of Comic Sans. https://www.caseyconnect.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/sims-comic-sans-300x170.jpg https://www.caseyconnect.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media... When to use Comic Sans: https://www.caseyconnect.com/blog/2013/typography/comic-sans-love-it-or-hate-it https://www.caseyconnect.com/blog/2013/typography/comic-sans... >The Sims Comic Sans in-game text >Because of it's lighthearted nature, Comic Sans might be appropriate for design situations where humor or lack of seriousness is appropriate. One example of this is the simulation game The Sims, where Comic Sans was used for all in-game text. Materials appropriate for children might also benefit from the use of Comic Sans. In case you can't stand to read Comic Sans with your own eyes, I also made an external screen scraping utility called Simplifier that reads Comic Sans text off the screen, and catalogs and recites the product descriptions with a speech synthesizer. Demo of The Sims Transmogrifier, RugOMatic, ShowNTell, Simplifier and Slice City: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Imu1v3GecB8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Imu1v3GecB8 I recently dug up an early internal pre-release demo of it for "The Sims Steering Committee" from June 4 1998, that convinced EA not to cancel our project. It shows a very early version of the user interface, that was already using Comic Sans. (So did the Quick Start Guide.) The Sims Steering Committee - June 4 1998: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC52jE60KjY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC52jE60KjY (Notice last word of the second paragraph of the Level 4 scenario description at 1:00! ;) Maybe the fact that it was written in Comic Sans enabled that little boo-boo to fly under the radar.)

rafaelvasco 7y ago
Absolutely. And it was the perfect font choice for The Sims. I really like Comic Sans when it's used in the right context.
- DonHopkins 7y ago
  The other perfect application of Comic Sans was (wait for it....) Microsoft Comic Chat! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Comic_Chat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Comic_Chat >Microsoft Comic Chat installed a custom font, Comic Sans MS, that users could use in other applications and documents. In 1996 it was bundled with several other fonts in Microsoft's Core Fonts for the Web project and subsequent versions of Microsoft Windows, leading to its notoriety among the internet. https://chrisgliddon.com/a-trip-down-memory-lane-microsoft-comic-chat-6f23b8a64295 https://chrisgliddon.com/a-trip-down-memory-lane-microsoft-c... >While Microsoft’s Comic Sans was first introduced in 1995 as part of a Windows 95 Plus Pack, the font was more likely cemented into many people’s minds for one or two reasons: 1) well-meaning, yet not-necessarily-design-savvy educators, and 2) being selected as the default font in a new internet chat application called Microsoft Comic Chat.
  - hedora 7y ago
    MS Comic Chat is still my favorite IRC client, even if it is completely useless for communication these days.

bitwize 7y ago

> An Irish fiddler of some note once quipped, "What's the difference between a great tune and a hackneyed tune? About 20 years." TVTropes calls this phenomenon "Seinfeld Isn't Funny".