Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

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>I disagree, it's just not a good font. It has zero contrast (not suitable for display text and print), no harmony (not suitable for body text), and it's poorly hinted (not suitable for screen text).

Which is beside the point. It wasn't supposed to be used for body text or print in small sizes. And it doesn't have to be hinted because it's not meant to be used for long form screen text.

Would you call a title font "bad" because it's not suitable for body text?

As for it "not even being a true sans serif", there are several fonts that cross those boundaries while being perfectly fine. Not being a true "sans/serif" is not some badge of dishonour.

Comic Sans is a good font because it is perfectly suited to convey the message people use it for: child-like, friendliness, common folk-syness etc. As such it's great for personal posters, party invitations, signs, yard sales, elementary school signs, etc.

Notice that even if that wasn't the usage intended by its creators, it's still a good font, because it found it's own niche.

I found the last example pretty convincing: I did not recognise Chalkboard, and the first part seemed readable to me to the point I said myself "Well, Comic Sans is not so bad finally"... and then the last line instantly jumped at me due to kerning and baseline. Comic Sans glyphs seem to each stand on their own, unable to keep themselves together to form a word. Chalkboard is far from perfect (see k-e kern) but it is way more readable, even for small text or stand-alone words.

The case against Comic Sans in undue context is due to the funny glyphs, while the case against Comic Sans vs other comic fonts is due not to the glyphs but to the whitespace around them.

>Comic Sans glyphs seem to each stand on their own, unable to keep themselves together to form a word. The case against Comic Sans in undue context is due to the funny glyphs, while the case against Comic Sans vs other comic fonts is due not to the glyphs but to the whitespace around them.

This whitespace and keming problems though might add to the naive appeal of the font. Like, for example, bad perspective and distorted proportions make a drawing more child-like.

> keming

Is that a typographical pun?

I'm not sure if it's technically a pun, but it's definitely a typographical joke.

Absolutely. This is most probably wanted in the second graphic example, where the lo-fi aspect and the collage of pictures from different sources would make any form of rigor look uncanny.

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