David K. Israel
Font Wars
by David K. Israel - July 20, 2010 - 10:52 AM

I saw this photo over on passiveaggressivenotes.com today and thought to myself: I wonder if you  _flossers would find it as amusing as I do. In case you don’t know Kelly Miller’s “painfully polite and hilariously hostile notes from shared spaces the world over” (as found on her twitter page), it’s high time you bookmarked or followed her to get in on the hilarity. Not a week goes by that the site doesn’t fail to bring a smile to my face.

Today’s photo got me thinking: in the battle of the Font Wars, which would win? Certainly not Comic Sans, according to this note.

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Comments (44)
  1. HATE Comic Sands.

  2. Helvetica FTW.

  3. I think this is hilarious! As a graphic designer, I can’t help but sigh and think murderous thoughts when I see people use Comic Sans (and, to a lesser degree, Papyrus and BrushScript).

  4. Why you hatin’ on BrushScript, dawg? Is fancy, yo!

  5. “Not a week goes by that the site fails to bring a smile to my face.” Hope you mean that the site DOESN’T fail to bring a smile… ;-D

  6. Thanks for finding me another great website to check out daily!!!

  7. I must also add that you have provided me with yet another site to add to my favs to checks each day. Thanks!

  8. Helvetica Neue, in bold condensed, please.

    Or Adobe Caslon Pro.

  9. DOWN WITH PAPYRUS!

    Love font wars…it’s always hilarious.

  10. I was more concerned about the multiple exclamation points. When it comes to annoying fonts, I gun for Papyrus.

  11. Yes, these notes are hilarious, and yes it is inappropriate to use comic sans at work. Comic sans is stupid and juvenile.

  12. Fellow Papyrus haters: THANK YOU!

    I have been reading passiveagressivenotes.com for a long time, and it is always provides a great start for my day. If you have never visited before, you are sure to become quickly sucked into the archives!

  13. I’m torn between Tahoma and Verdana

  14. HEY! I like Comic Sans! Then again I liked Barney the Dinosaur too.

  15. another vote for Papyrus Smackdown.

  16. I personally don’t use comic sans, but all you comic sans-o-phobes are a bunch of weenies!

  17. death to papyrus! my housemate, who is a graphic designer, LOATHES papyrus in all of its papyrus-y non-goodness!

    thanks for the fun new website to look at!

  18. Typeface terrorism! I now know which font to foist upon a frothing fontophobe.

    I suspect that Hyacinth was commenting on a double negative, and your insertion of “doesn’t” created a triple negative. How about “That site brings a smile to my face every week”?

  19. My favorite font is Poppl-Laudautio because it looks great and is fun to say.

  20. I’m here representing the Comic Sans defamation league.

    Comics Sans is a font just like any other and is entitled to the rights that all fonts carry. I have a dream of a future where once day Comic Sans can walk side-by-side with Helvetica! Where Papyrus will not be looked down upon! And where Brushscript can be accepted as one of our own!

    Ladies and Gentlemen, please stand up for Equal Font rights!!!

  21. I vote for Times New Roman.

  22. More amusing is that the design pedant who complained about the choice of font has no clue about the proper use of capitalization.

    Now that you’ve mastered design arts, crack open an English grammar book.

  23. AHHHHHHHH!! THE PERSON WHO WROTE THE 2ND SIGN DIDN’T EVEN SAY ANYTHING ABOUT THE ALL CAPS!!!! HOW ANNOYING IS IT WHEN PEOPLE USE ALL CAPS ON SOMETHING?

    SURE IT’S GOOD FOR EMPHASIS ONCE IN A WHILE, BUT COMMMMMMMON!!!!!

    Guess he’s saving that one up his sleeve for the next font skirmish. lol.

  24. Times New Roman, 12 point.

  25. I do hate Comic Sans, but I had no idea so many people hated Papyrus. I…kinda like it.

    But for the most part I’m a Georgia or Garamond person, myself.

  26. Forget the all caps — after all, many standard signs are all caps — it’s the triple exclamation points that annoy me the most!!!

    Oh, and another reason to like Comic Sans: The Sims.

  27. It’s a font – who cares one way or the other?? I don’t get the hostility over this

  28. A couple of years of years ago I was writing a paper and the company’s editor kept kicking it back with comments that she didn’t understand sections. I made some snide comment about her not understanding the topic and the response was “it was all greek to me” I opened the paper and she had converted the font from Times New Roman to Symbol. (try it sometime)

  29. Papyrus does kind of suck, but to me the worst by far is Curlz. Is there ever a need to use that font? Why does it exist?

  30. Hehe, nice catch… I do think that some thought needs to be put into font selection in the professional realm.

  31. I like Garamond for serif fonts and Gill Sans for sans serif.

    I think that most fonts have their times and places (e.g. lemonade stands), but the thing that makes me most frustrated is the negligent mixing of fonts. I get so mad when I’m typing up a document for work and Word 2007 automatically formats a page number, header, footer, or caption in Times New Roman when the rest of the document is in our standard Calibri. At least go with a complimentary font!

  32. Personally, I prefer Century Gothic. I HATE Comic Sans, so at least I’m in agreement with the Comic Sans rebuttal :P.

  33. For those who missed the Comic Sans retort:

    “We don’t all have seventy-three weights of stick-up-my-ass Helvetica sitting on our seventeen-inch MacBook Pros. Sorry the entire world can’t all be done in stark Eurotrash Swiss type. Sorry some people like to have fun. Sorry I’m standing in the way of your minimalist Bauhaus-esque fascist snoozefest.”

    http://redux.com/f/1381567/Comic-Sans-The-Response

  34. Arial rounded bold.
    Don’t know why.

  35. “Not a week goes by that the site doesn’t fail to bring a smile to my face.” Come on, you can’t post something like this photo and then use a sentence like that!

  36. I like Comic Sans! The only thing my husband grouses about is when different fonts are used in the same document/poster etc.

  37. Wingdings or webdings, because no one understands it.

  38. I don’t really care when it comes to fonts. If I can read it, it’s good enough for me, so that includes papyrus and comic sans. Most of the time, I don’t even really notice. Arial and Times New Roman is everywhere and it’s nice to break away from the norm now and then. And font nazi drive me nuts.. unreasonably so! Which I think adds to my frustration. There’s enough in the world to act superior over… when someone tries to act smug over a font choice… and so many do.. as if one must be an uneducated invalid if they choose anything but their font of choice… I suppose it’s just a pet peeve, as I’m sure it is to them, but my response is usually “Oh, get over it or go away.”

  39. As a teacher of students with learning disabilities, I use Comic Sans all the time as it is closest to handwriting. I hate it, but I use it. The letters look so different from “printing” in other fonts. My kids get totally thrown by any other font.

  40. I’ve always liked Palatino, sometimes Tahoma.

  41. Kalinga is useful because it makes work seem longer.

  42. Can’t fathom why anyone could get worked up enough to hate a font. I mean, a font? Really? Your life must be pretty good if that’s the focus of your ire.

  43. I can die happy now, I thought I was the only one who loathed Times New Roman.

    Comic Sans, Papyrus and Brush Script don’t bother me however.

  44. My preferred font is also Century Gothic Ericka

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