Semiotic Analysis of Comic Sans

When I think of comic sans, I think of cheap, tacky, ill-informed design. Apparently so do many other like minded people within the arts community. A couple of days ago an interesting point was brought up within a Typography lecture; how comic sans and Arial are generally hated amongst designers. I want to look at the reasoning behind that. Is it simply that comic sans is a visually disgusting Typeface? I'll agree it's not to my personal taste, but it's hardly soul destroying. It was designed with the intention of high levels of legibility, and in that respect it is extremely functional, it's still used heavily today in many dyslexic communities for that reason. Comic sans was designed by Vincent Connare in 1994 with the intention of it appealing to children, the font started to be used in early editions of windows movie maker for the likes of speech bubbles. It was also used to represent the speech of a talking help dog which was also for Windows. In this context, comic sans is fine. It does exactly what it's supposed to do.

So what's the reason for the mass hatred? This is what I think. It basically comes down to the overuse of the font, but more specifically to its overuse in the wrong tone of voice. A great example of this is the A4 monotone informative sheets that have been plastered on every office wall and door everywhere from Burnley to Basingstoke. 'Printer out of order, 'Please use other door'. So why do people do it? Because they can. People have had access to it for years, they can switch on there computer and print comic sans until their heart is content. The amount of people who are un-informed about Typography is generally quite high, and for that reason a lot of people seem to think that comic sans is okay to use for a multitude of purposes. It's not okay a lot of the time, and as designers we transcend the semiotic meanings of a style of font. I would personally take a danger message written in comic sans as sarcastic or joking, purely because it's not a serious typeface.

To sum up, I think it's more or less a joke between designers. We generally think we are all agreed on not liking the visual aesthetics of comic sans, so we mock it. But perhaps we should think about why. It's a social agreement within our specific field; no well-informed designer would use comic sans because we understand the connotations it carries with it.

Name: Comic Sans MS

Released: 1994

Designer: Vincent Connare

Style: San Serif

Classification: Casual

Suggested Origins: Silicone