Not often does a font get media attention. Comic sans however has moved people to snark, derision, and a web site calling for the ban of the font, bancomicsans.com. Recently the discovery of the Higg boson particle was announced and oddly, comic sans was involved.
Comic Sans – making Higgs boson more accessible? Image: Denis Balibouse/Reuters
God particle presentation written in Comic Sans
Vancouver Sun | July 5, 2012
The world is just starting to wrap its head around the so-called “God particle,” a new subatomic particle that could be the Higgs boson, the basic building block of the universe. But what some people are talking about is not the discovery itself, but how it was presented.
Scientists at the CERN research centre unveiled their findings with a presentation that used Comic Sans, a font that is often the object of derision among designers.
The Twitterverse had a field day with the Higgs boson Comic Sans presentation. One user joked that “The Higgs Boson announcement being made in Comic Sans is proof that God particle has a sense of humor.”
This isn’t the first time a public announcement has been mocked because of Comic Sans.
In 2010, Cleveland Cavaliers owner Daniel Gilbert wrote a fiery letter to season ticket holders after star player LeBron James left the Cavs to sign with the Miami Heat. Most fans ignored his vow to bring an NBA championship to Cleveland and focused on the fact that the billionaire businessman wrote it in Comic Sans.
Comic Sans has long been a punching bag in the design community. Even one of the men responsible for the font doesn’t have a kind word to say about it.
When the Guardian UK asked Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons about Comic Sans, he replied:
“It’s just a shame they couldn’t have used just the original font, because it’s a real mess. I think it’s a particularly ugly letter form. The other thing that really bugs me that they’ve used an upper case I with bars on it: it looks completely wrong to the comic eye. And when you see store fronts done in it, it’s horrible.”
-with files from Reuters
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen