3 ms·

Some people dislike anything that vaguely reminds them of Comic Sans fonts I guess. Personally I think it resembles VAG Round a lot, which is a font fairly com

Some people dislike anything that vaguely reminds them of Comic Sans fonts I guess. Personally I think it resembles VAG Round a lot, which is a font fairly common in Germany (possibly because it was designed for Volkswagen)

tokai 5y ago
Oh I didn't even connect it to comic sans. It's very nice, but nothing overwhelmingly different from another grotesque font with rounded ends. CS is a script font and not a grotesque so thats annoying if that is really the reason to call it ugly.
- WorldMaker 5y ago
  You realize that "grotesque" is often considered an English synonym for "ugly"? The entire style of font has been considered "ugly" for a lot longer than Comic Sans has existed. It's a form that's not often symmetrical or exact so it is an "odd" form and a lot of people historically have found "odd" to be "ugly". (Also, Comic Sans fits the definitions of both script fonts and grotesque fonts, so it is probably extremely subjective which bucket you prefer to define it.)
  - tokai 5y ago
    I dont understand why you think you little language lesson is relevant. As you write yourself the true (german) meaning of the term is strange. Laymen thought they were bizarre and maybe ugly. But for most other they were seen as very aesthetic from the onset. Which is why these new fonts absolutely dominated the fraktur fonts. The reaction to them was more about a culture shock than an aesthetic disapproval. It is a historic term and any interpretation were you call CS grotesk would be suspect.
    - WorldMaker 5y ago
      The etymology of the term is from Latin (for "hidden grotto"), and English inherited denotations (Dictionary meanings) both from German font usage and from French. I was pointing out the connotation (colloquial meaning) in English of "ugly" simply that it shows evidence for a long standing cultural bias. Enough of a long standing cultural bias that people may call them "ugly" simply out of "cultural habit" without examining where that bias came from or why they feel that way. I also subjectively think many of the grotesque fonts are quite pretty, and I like Comic Sans too, but if you are asking why people think they are "ugly", one of the reasons is "subconscious cultural bias" and the "language lesson" was pointing out deep evidence of that (at least in English speaking cultures).
  - egypturnash 5y ago
    "grotesque" is also a term of art in font circles for a certain kind of sans serif, which leads to endless confusion. "Look at that gorgeous grotesque" is a perfectly decent sentence for a designer to say.
unfocussed_mike 5y ago
Many people don't know this font and yet it turns out spent some part of 16 years pressing their fingertips on it: https://jalopnik.com/see-if-you-can-spot-the-vw-connection-in-this-old-apple-1848401105 https://jalopnik.com/see-if-you-can-spot-the-vw-connection-i...

tokai 5y ago

Oh I didn't even connect it to comic sans. It's very nice, but nothing overwhelmingly different from another grotesque font with rounded ends. CS is a script font and not a grotesque so thats annoying if that is really the reason to call it ugly.

WorldMaker 5y ago
You realize that "grotesque" is often considered an English synonym for "ugly"? The entire style of font has been considered "ugly" for a lot longer than Comic Sans has existed. It's a form that's not often symmetrical or exact so it is an "odd" form and a lot of people historically have found "odd" to be "ugly". (Also, Comic Sans fits the definitions of both script fonts and grotesque fonts, so it is probably extremely subjective which bucket you prefer to define it.)
- tokai 5y ago
  I dont understand why you think you little language lesson is relevant. As you write yourself the true (german) meaning of the term is strange. Laymen thought they were bizarre and maybe ugly. But for most other they were seen as very aesthetic from the onset. Which is why these new fonts absolutely dominated the fraktur fonts. The reaction to them was more about a culture shock than an aesthetic disapproval. It is a historic term and any interpretation were you call CS grotesk would be suspect.
  - WorldMaker 5y ago
    The etymology of the term is from Latin (for "hidden grotto"), and English inherited denotations (Dictionary meanings) both from German font usage and from French. I was pointing out the connotation (colloquial meaning) in English of "ugly" simply that it shows evidence for a long standing cultural bias. Enough of a long standing cultural bias that people may call them "ugly" simply out of "cultural habit" without examining where that bias came from or why they feel that way. I also subjectively think many of the grotesque fonts are quite pretty, and I like Comic Sans too, but if you are asking why people think they are "ugly", one of the reasons is "subconscious cultural bias" and the "language lesson" was pointing out deep evidence of that (at least in English speaking cultures).
- egypturnash 5y ago
  "grotesque" is also a term of art in font circles for a certain kind of sans serif, which leads to endless confusion. "Look at that gorgeous grotesque" is a perfectly decent sentence for a designer to say.

unfocussed_mike 5y ago

Many people don't know this font and yet it turns out spent some part of 16 years pressing their fingertips on it: https://jalopnik.com/see-if-you-can-spot-the-vw-connection-in-this-old-apple-1848401105 https://jalopnik.com/see-if-you-can-spot-the-vw-connection-i...