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Hi, I'm the designer of Comic Code. I just wanted to join the discussion here, just because it looked fun. I know I released a Comic Sans variant, and I'm total
by tosche 7y ago
Hi, I'm the designer of Comic Code. I just wanted to join the discussion here, just because it looked fun. I know I released a Comic Sans variant, and I'm totally okay with the negative reaction; in fact it puts a big smile on my face. A world where everyone loves Comic Sans sounds wrong, doesn't it?.
I used to hate Comic Sans but it's still an interesting typeface that teaches you a lot about typography. Comic Sans can be a great choice depending on the context, and I want to share my personal favourite. When I went to a restaurant in Istanbul, they gave me menus in Turkish and English. The former was set in Comic Sans and the latter in Frutiger. The English menu looked so much like an office document and the Turkish one looked much more appetising (and I wished I could read Turkish). That was a genuine time when Comic Sans beat Frutiger.
Despite its quirky letterforms, it performs surprisingly well on screen. And I have seen people trying to use Comic Sans for coding too, most notably Simon Peyton Jones. Programming/coding is also a corner of typography where writing aspect plays a lot compared to others (e.g. user interface), so I found handwriting fonts quite fitting too. I think Comic Code also helps coding beginners who may be intimidated by the cold and mechanical visual of codes. I for one am easily bored while writing codes in regular sans serif. Coding environment is a very personal space and there is no need to look professional. I didn't need maximum clarity or efficiency in my coding typeface, but I wanted to have fun coding.
I think Comic Sans, for some people anyway, is something the internet told you to hate. I do see flaws in the typeface and I tried to improve it in my design, but I don't think you should be ashamed of liking Comic Sans. It's not even a bad typeface, and I have seen worse, many times. There is no bad typeface, only bad typography.
(That's not strictly true but generally the case for Comic Sans)
Sorry for the long post. If you have suggestions (e.g. what glyphs and ligatures added), I'm all ears.
- krisrm 7y agoI actually... don't mind it. $15 is a bit much for me to pop on something I'm likely to spend some time giggling at (or maybe pranking some colleagues with... hmmm), but it really does look like the best of both worlds between comic sans and a monospace terminal font. Whatever that is. Anyways, well done!
- tosche 7y agoThanks! I have taken the idea very seriously and made sure it works as a workhorse coding font so that your purchase will not end up as a joke (it still may, that's up to your taste of course). There is Coding Essentials pack that gives you the usual four weights (Reg, Ita, Bol, BolIta) plus bonus weights.
- microcolonel 7y agoIs there anywhere except MyFonts to buy a license? The website is incredibly frustrating, it takes upwards of 20 seconds to do anything, and it's not clear to me how I can actually check out. I still can't get the checkout page to actually appear, it just waits forever (but there's no loading spinner, so I guess it's some huge script running on every page load?) P.S. It's nice to see a full set of basic Cyrillic and Hellenic characters.
- tosche 7y agoThanks, in my humble opinion, the Cyrillic and Greek are actually better in Comic Code despite being monospaced. Unfortunately I am not allowed to sell the fonts elsewhere, so you may want to send a feedback to the website. I am sorry for the inconvenience.
- pault 7y agoI was expecting to laugh at how ugly it is, but it actually looks really nice! I bought the essentials pack to replace operator mono, which I've become bored with. Good job! Edit: It looks really great with a theme that supports italics: https://imgur.com/a/VYH1J8s https://imgur.com/a/VYH1J8s
- tracker1 7y agoLooks like a great font... curious if you might be willing to add the missing glyphs for CP437 (mostly missing block and line drawing characters)... would love to use this as a web terminal font option.
- tosche 7y agoThanks, I can do that.
- tekknik 7y agoI would probably actually use this, but that price is really high for what this is. $100 for the full family? really?
- tosche 7y agoI know the typeface looks childish, but that does not mean it was made poorly; I spent a lot of time making this typeface actually capable of serious business. Also you can easily find coding typefaces with higher price but with fewer characters and sometimes no italics. Besides, there is a smaller pack called Coding Essentials, so you do not need to buy the whole family (that wouldn't be so useful for coding anyway).
- slig 7y agoJust bought the Essentials package. $30 is a steal for something that I might use for 8+ hours per day. I can only imagine the amount of work and craftsmanship that you put into this, congrats!