I have a lot of friends who are design students, and they often talk, among other things design-related, about fonts. While I am no design student, I can definitely appreciate a good font when I see one.
Now, the internet is a weird place – anything is a target for humor, even the most trivial of subjects. If you think about the things this generation laughs at, I’m sure you can think of something more obscure than font. So when I mention the font Comic Sans, I’m sure some of you cringed. Comic Sans is the ultimate joke font. It is certainly hideous, but it’s infamy has reached levels that anything written in it is immediately taken as irony or sarcasm or a joke. I’m sure there are many teachers out there writing signs or worksheets for kids in Comic Sans… blissfully unaware that they’re using a memey font.
Fonts do, certainly, play a part in our literacy. They affect how we receive messages because they influence a message’s clarity, appeal, and formality. No good student is going to write a research paper in Papyrus. That’s just absurd. But, why? Well, first of all, it’s ugly, and second, a font like Times New Roman looks more cohesive and orderly on a page. Similarly, no good advertisement agency is going to put out an ad or poster that has all the information written in the same size of Times New Roman on a page with no pictures.
On a less academic note, if you guys want to see a true abomination, look up the Comic Sans – Papyrus hybrid. One of my design friends showed that to me the other night… *shivers.*
