Dear Startups, Lobster is the new Comic Sans
5in5nyc.com
5in5nyc.com
http://www.kadavy.net/blog/posts/why-you-hate-comic-sans/
By this author's logic we should all stop using Helvetica, too - it's way too common.
When non-stylized things become very common, it's usually because they're good all around choices: their popularity advances the field. When extremely stylized things become very common, it typically leads to embarrassment down the road.
In music for example, it's now very common to have the drums in the center of the mix. This is the default because it makes sense. You only notice the panning of the drums when it's something else. In the eighties it became extremely common to use almost nothing but synths, and to have the snare drum drenched in reverb. You listen back to eighties material now, and at best you appreciate the campiness of these things. Mostly they seem like a weird obsession that suddenly gripped the whole industry and warped everything to come out of it for a decade. The modern day equivalent of course is Autotune.
The parent comment is correct. Comic Sans isn't just stylized; it's a stylized face designed for a very particular purpose (as a stand-in for the hand lettering in comic books). And the problem with Comic Sans isn't that it's overused. It's that it's used in inappropriate places.
There is nothing wrong with making safe, popular choices in typefaces. Designers may gripe about how cliched Gotham is, but Gotham works. Comic Sans virtually never works. This post does not make a case that Lobster never works.
Source?
Wikipedia sayeth about Helvetica:
"The aim of the new design was to create a neutral typeface that had great clarity, no intrinsic meaning in its form, and could be used on a wide variety of signage."
There's a history of sans-serifs (with emphasis on grotesques) here http://www.linotype.com/en/795/thesansseriftypefaces.html?PH... that seems to suggest they had caught on pretty well by the 20s.
http://www.freddesign.co.uk/2010/04/archive/the-differences-...
... which suggests that Akzidenz didn't come into modern use until the '50s.
But it does scream that at me.
Comic Sans is grotesque and was badly designed from the start. One has to wonder why it was popular, i'm sure there is a ton of article about that (surely the author should have deepen a bit in the subject and check that),
But if I would have to guess, in the 2000 debut it was one of the widely available fonts that had a different (poor) look.
Lobster is NOTHING like comic sans, it's a good font unfortunately overused. That's it.
But they do notice when trendy fonts trend. And comic sans most certainly did trend, and it was that trend -- and not its relative font merit -- that made it so deridden. It is the Croc shoes of the font world. Wow that analogy works really well because while shoe snobs can rail off the problems with the mighty croc (ignoring its benefits), they completely miss the mark on why there is the general anti-croc backlash (hint -- hipsterism. Anti-populism. etc)
This article is dead-on.
Comic Sans shows up everywhere. Lecture slides, shop signs, product packaging... it (was|is)? ubiquitous.
Now, Lobster might twig in the minds of typography geeks and designers, but it isn't nearly prevalent enough to be in the concious of 99.999% of users. Let's face it, 99.999% users don't spend all their time on start-up websites.
a) It was included in the default font set of just about every computer sold from nineteen-ninety-something to today, and
b) It was the only default font that was "fun" and "not boring" to the great unwashed masses of typographically unsophisticated people (a category in which I include even myself)
So everybody from teenagers to grandmothers would look through their font list and go "boring, boring, boring, ooh this one looks like handwriting, that's fun, I'll go with that". The other reason it's derided is therefore that it's used by design-naive people and hence associated with bad design; Comic Sans is very likely to be accompanied by flashing pink text and ugly clip art.
While writing this, I suddenly noticed that the expenses reimbursement form sitting on the desk in front of me is in Comic Sans. So add "HR reps" to the list.
For example, see Helvetica and Neue Helvetica in the logos of BMW, 3M, Gap, American Apparel, Jeep, The NBA, Lufthansa, Target, Motorola, Verizon Wireless, McDonald's and Microsoft. There are many others I'm sure.
Now if you had said Papyrus, I would tend to agree with you.
Helvetica, in my opinion, is a fantastic utility. It gets out of the way, and only those who know to look for it notice it.
On a semi-related note, I highly recommend the documentary "Helvetica," as well as the books about the development of the font. I'm not a font wonk by any means, but I do enjoy design. Anyone with even a passing interest in the subject will get a kick out of the film.
Saying Gotham is overused is like saying Arial, Tahoma, Verdana are overused for web. If it is clean, visible at a distance and generic looking enough not to be annoying, it's hard to say it is overused, much like Helvetica.
Note: I say this as a designer that sees Lobster and Bello used (almost literally) hundreds of times a day in various capacities, a lot like Museo back in the day (yuck). Not sure if it is because they're Google fonts or if one startup used it and therefore every company had to use it, but in most situations they're the completely wrong type to use and when you see them, it's usually a sign of indolence/ignorance or lack of a real designer.
The aesthetic - as art, tastes are subjective (and there is no accounting for them), there's basically stuff you like and stuff you don't like. Right or wrong, for many people, liking and not liking translates to "good" and "bad". For example, "Comic Sans is bad because it's ugly".
The craft - the technical parts (i.e., kerning, spacing, scaling) are much more objective and have more to do with quality, so it's easier to classify stuff as good or bad. For example, "Comic Sans is bad because its kerning is broken".
I usually ignore aesthetic commentary - everyone's different. Some people like the way Comic Sans looks, and that's OK.
On the other hand, I do think criticisms on the craftsmanship are valuable, especially as a non-designer.
My point is largely that Lobster has a much more defined and recognizable look than classic "Sans" fonts like Arial and Helvetica and "Serif" fonts like Times and Georgia.
The look is recognizable enough that it evokes comparison to other sites, which you may want to consider. It can also break down the fourth wall between your site and it's viewers if they recognize the font. They go "oh, that's lobster, one of google's free fonts" instead of "nice logo" which, again might not be what you're after.
Once Lobster has shown up consistently on PTA meeting itineraries, junior high pep-rally announcements and yard-sale flyers for about 15 years then maybe that font will be able to compare itself to Comic Sans.
Now we just need an "Avatar"-sized hugely commercial startup to use Lobster to finally run it into the ground.
And yet, in its time, this was the shit.
Let's pour one out for the single-pixel GIF ...
I couldn't help noticing, though, that the page loaded wicked fast. Can't say I would mind it if more of the web was still that efficient.
And, Comic Sans is not a terrible typeface. It's just terrible for almost every application, except for comic book lettering.
Still, I fail to see why this is a problem. Design trends happen.
It was explained to me this way, "Chuck lets say that bubble sorts and bloom filters were these versatile algorithms that worked really well on a few things, but a bunch of cut-n-paste programmers started using them for every program they wrote, hello world with a bubble sort and a bloom filter, a temperature monitor with a bubble sort and a bloom filter, a file system with a bubble sort and a bloom filter, wouldn't it drive you NUTS?"
And I have to admit when I'm being honest with myself that folks who program 'cook book' style (which is to say they re-use code that kinda works and then bodge it into shape with a hack or two) do rub me the wrong way.
Apparently this is how designers feel about things like Comic Sans and the four box table layout and the any number of things that people do to put together web sites that the creator enjoys, but are not actually designed.
Really, I just wanted to raise it in people's consciousness so it's a consideration when you're choosing the font for your next project.
I think we're right at the threshold where powerusers (and tech blog authors) will start seeing Lobster and think "Ah. generic startup font. This was thrown together in a weekend."
Sometimes that's just fine, but it's not always what you want your wordmark to communicate.
Sure, there's a place for Comic Sans, but it's used in so many places that it shouldn't be.
It's sad, because it was a very nice font, but it's just overused.
Lobster makes me want to buy some soup, or order a la carte. Well, at least I don't cringe looking at it.
Maybe it's time we have graphic design as a licensed trade.
All I could think of was how serving lobster to your employees is considered the new comic sans. An interesting world to think about, if I may say so.