Type Means More Than Words
“The fact that there is such widespread hatred of Comic Sans shows that our society has attained a certain level of design literacy.”
The typeface Comic Sans is so synonymous with bad design that there are whole movements trying to ban it. And honestly, rightfully so. Comic Sans is a horrible typeface by today’s standard. The lettering is incredibly inconsistent, the letter forms are borderline illegible at small sizes, and it cannot be lined up in a grid system. Comic Sans breaks almost every rule of good design. It’s such a joke that it has almost reached a point where it is cool to use it ironically.
However, when it was designed in 1994, it served its specific purpose. It was designed to be used in the speech bubbles of a friendly dog who gives helpful insight on how to use Microsoft Bob: the operating system skin created to make Windows 3.1 more kid-friendly and usable. The typeface was intended to fit a friendly and playful feel, and it did its job well. Computer screens today have a feature called anti-aliasing which make words on a screen look smooth, whereas in the past this feature was not present causing words to look jagged and harder to read. Comic Sans was designed to be viewed on screens without this feature, so, in its original context, all its imperfections actually allowed for quite a legible read. Comic Sans was designed for a specific era, in which it worked remarkably well, and now it has been taken out of that context.
Today, Comic Sans comes across universally as incredibly ugly. Yet, it still has an important role to play in the world of design. The fact that there is such widespread hatred of Comic Sans shows that our society has attained a certain level of understanding design sensibility. In the same way that the printing press brought on high literacy rates within the public, the widespread use of typefaces on computers is starting to bring on a high level of design literacy. And while that means that Comic Sans will be used repeatedly by people who just don’t know better, it also means that the public is starting to understand the power contained within a typeface.
We never see written language naked. It is always dressed in a typeface. So, it is vital that the public fully understands the effect of typeface on communication. Typefaces like Gotham or Helvetica are commonly used by corporations and governments because their aesthetics communicate simplicity and professionalism. A typeface like Lydian is frequently used by artists because it is beautiful and intricate. A bolder typeface is often considered manly or harsh, whereas a lighter weight typeface is seen as more delicate and feminine. Typefaces convey meaning, moods, and emotions, which can go beyond the words they clothe.
There isn’t a better example of this concept than the typeface Futura. Designed in 1927 by Paul Renner in Germany, Renner dubbed it an “eminently German typeface.” When it was released by The Bauer Type Foundry, it was marketed as “the font of our time” and the “font of the future” to the international typography community. Almost 20 years later, when NASA was looking for a typeface to be launched into space, they needed something that was legible but also carried the feeling of progress, modernism, and the future; they chose Futura. This means that Futura is the only typeface which has landed on the moon. The Apollo 11 crew left a plaque that reads: “Here men from planet Earth first set foot on the Moon July 1969, A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.” It was set in Futura. Its usage and connotations have not died in the near 100 years that it has existed. It is still the typeface of the future and just as cool. The streetwear giant, Supreme, uses an italicized medium weight Futura inside a red box as their logo. These shirts sell for hundreds of dollars just because of their “hype.” Filmmaker Wes Anderson has used Futura pretty much exclusively in every movie he has ever made. As trends come and go, one would think that a typeface would die along with the trend; however, that has not been the case with Futura.
There is a common design saying which goes, “type means more than words.” The level of meaning offered by a typeface surpasses that of the words which it dresses; it reaches beyond trends and changes in vocabulary to express some underlying sentiment. It can even be used to represent a vast range of ideologies. Comic Sans and Futura are proof of this. If you write a paper in Comic Sans, it is likely that your professor will not even read it. If you change that typeface to Times New Roman, those same words are seen as professional, and the paper is taken more seriously. The words themselves haven’t changed, but their form has. Comic Sans may be childish, unprofessional, and flat out ugly, but the benefit of design literacy that comes with its existence opens society’s view of typefaces. Our generation is exploring new avenues of type, and the public is starting to realize the power that type has. Design literacy is opening our society to new ways of feeling and expressing emotion, and that is a beautiful thing.
