Extended Essay:

WHY THE TYPOGRAPHY COMIC SANS MS IS AESTHETICALLY

UNPLEASING AND WHAT ARE ITS SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS?
IB Diploma May Session 2014
Juan Diego Herrera Mamanch
Candidate code: 004301 - 0060
Word count: 3541


INDEX OF CONTENTS:
Acknowledgements 3
Summary

Introduction

Chapter 1
On Typographies Fonts and Comic Sans

1.1 The History of Typographies

1.2 The Anatomy of a Font

1.3 What is Comic Sans?

Chapter 2
Typographical and Social Approach

2.1 Typographical Approach

2.2 Social Implications

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Chapter 4
Conclusions

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Bibliography

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
This work is dedicated to:
My mother, who is my biggest fan and the most unconditional support I couldve asked for.
She is the reason I do every single thing in my life.
My siblings, who are my main source of laughter, information and trustfulness.
My family, who have always supported me on everything Ive ever done.
My friends Josu and Juan David, not only for inspiring this work, but also for the
knowledge, moments and memories weve shared together.
Camilo Ariza, one of the smartest and kindest teachers Ive ever met, who was always
willing to listen to my musings about ugly fonts and correct me on what I was saying.
Juan Camilo Osman, a very learned and earnest designer who I met by very odd reasons
but, regardless of everything, not only helped structure this essay but also part of my life.
To Anthony Moy. Regardless of being the most sarcastic man alive, he is a very nice and
knowledgeable person who didnt hesitate to help me when I needed it.

SUMMARY:
Typographies are the most important mean of communication since the very first human
attempt to express him through a physical mean. They come in a plethora of varieties and
can come in many forms, from the silly and funny ones for the kids, going through the ones
that are not alphabets but pictures, to the ones that are more serious and are often used in
texts and documents.
Comic Sans is one of the silly ones, and it can be considered one of the most important
fonts of all time, but not for the reasons you think. It is important because it is hated around
the world because of its design and the way people use it in wrong contexts and wrong
ways.
In this essay, I will analyse how and why is the font Comic Sans aesthetically unpleasing
looking it from the technical and aesthetical typographical rules, and later I will make an
analysis of how it is important for seeing how the tools the human uses are not wrong or
bad, but rather the human himself.


INTRODUCTION:
Why is the typography Comic Sans aesthetically unpleasing and what are its social
implications? It is impossible to write anything without the use of a font or typography.
Either if it is handwritten or printed, every message that is conceived into our minds and
that is turned into a written message has to be written in any form of typography, no
exceptions. Typography is not necessarily an arrangement of glyphs that had been designed
for print or for digital use; it is any graphic manifestation of a written message. For printed
and digital uses, they are commonly referred to as fonts, and a family of fonts is called a
typeface.
The earliest influence of a modern typeface comes from the Trajans Column in Rome, on
which was engraved an inscription with a typography that later inspires font designer and
calligrapher Carol Twombly to create her well known and praised typeface TRAJAN,
which is a very accurate reinterpretation of the artists work on the column.
The use of typefaces in the digital era (from late 1970s to early 2010s) has seen an
exponential growth that does not seem to stop at any moment. Because these days almost
everybody has a computer, a tablet, a phone, or any digital device of their own, they are
able to see how typefaces and fonts have been intrinsic properties of technological
development. First typefaces for digital uses looked very harsh, pixelated and computermade, without a lot of details, to make them look really digital and to make them differ
from printed or handwritten ones, and also to save memory space, since typographies also
filled space in the devices memory. Then, with the arrival of the Internet, more print-like,
serif fonts appeared in the programs that the computers could run; showing flexibility, ease
of use, and virtually unlimited options for web and digital design. Now, with tablets and
smartphones almost any major company is using in their products smoother, sans serif
typefaces and cleaner designs to adapt to the new 21st century minimalistic trends.
With the introduction of major operative systems like Microsoft Windows, Apples Mac OS
and Linux UBUNTU in the 20th century, and with them a plethora of typeface options, any
casual user could easily design their posters, cards, rsums, or any other thing in easy-touse, affordable software pieces like Microsoft Office Word and Power Point, or Macintosh
Pages and Keynote.
Now, in each of those major operative systems, one font family is included into the built in
typographic catalogue, one that recently is causing a massive controversy between graphic
designers and casual tech users, and one that is detested in such way that has been wanted
to be banned from any context because of its puerile design and for not following the
typographic design canons, that has become truly the most recognizable and hated font of
all time:

Comic Sans MS.

In this essay, the reasons why Comic Sans is technically and aesthetically ugly will be
covered, and why such typeface has a major impact on society today.

It is important to analyse why Comic Sans is so rejected by many people along with its
social influence in order to understand how the overflow of working digital tools we have
and the little knowledge we possess about them can gravely affect our acceptance of beauty
and our conception of aesthetics.
CHAPTER 1:
ON TYPOGRAPHIES, FONTS AND COMIC SANS
1.1 THE HISTORY OF TYPOGRAPHIES
Typographies were born since the very first attempt of a visual communication convention
between human beings. The first known to human glyphs1 are cave paintings in remote
locations of the world: these primitive typographic attempts served as indications for other
people or tribes about certain topics, such as how to hunt animals, how to overcome certain
situations, or just merely to explain or relate stories. Those drawings are considered
typographic since they make up a consistent language (which means that is understandable
by people who know it, anytime, anywhere, in any way possible) made up of organized
glyphs that, if arranged in certain specific order, express an idea on a resilient surface, such
as a cave wall, graphically.
After societies became more developed, and people in said cultures became more eager to
share and pass on their experiences, fortunes and misfortunes of their culture, in order to
ease certain problems for the next generation and to share their tales with the youth. More
and tools were developed to alleviate the problem of misinformation, haziness about the
information, and resilience of it.
Chisels and stones were another surface in which the written message could be engraved
and passed easily. The author would write the message by hammering the chisel in the
stone, forming letters or symbols. When done, the stone with the message could be easily
passed between many people without losing any readability at all. Then, the societies saw
that there was a major problem with using graphics and images as glyphs, since plenty of
people could interpret them in different ways, so some of them left the ideographic
writings 2and focused on alphabetic writings3. From there, Romantic, Germanic and other
languages were born, and others like Mandarin, Japanese and other languages in a similar
geographic region stayed in the ideographic state.
Later came paper, then ink, then the quill, then leather and, after of years of evolution, we
saw in Germany one of the most important inventions of all time. In the past, if you wanted
to have a book, you would have to pay a lot of money, because you were asking the author
to write it all over again, since there was no effective method to replicate the same book a
big number of times. However, when Johannes Gutenberg developed the earliest printing

1 Glyph: any visual attempt of communication that is under the rules of a same font family.

2 Ideographic Writings: Communication conventions that use imagery and concepts as glyphs, instead

of an alphabet
3 Alphabetic writings: Communication conventions that use a specific arrangement of alphabetic glyphs

to express a unique concept.


system, he made one of the most revolutionary advances in the whole human history: he
made affordable, better quality, easier to read and obvious to use printed books for
everybody. In the past, only the rich people had the opportunity to possess a book. Since
Gutenberg, virtually anybody can possess a book, since now they are so affordable and easy
to get.
Still, in what lays the success of printed books? At one time, writers had to them entirely
by hand: that costed a lot of time, effort and money, this, the books were really expensive
and also the legibility of the book was sometimes compromised, when the authors
handwriting could be difficult to read or quite intricate to decode. Gutenberg forged moulds
of what could be called the first typography ever: Textura, a bold demi-script demi-block
typography used then to print the very first books. Since that moment, typographies have
grown exponentially, nonstop, for better or for worse.
1.2 THE ANATOMY OF A FONT
When printed works became popular, many artists developed their very own fonts. The
word font comes from the French word fondue which means melted, referring to the
melted metal used to forge the glyphs that will later be used to create texts. There are two
major variations of font in a font family: bold and italic.
EXAMPLE
The bold variation of the font family occupies more horizontal space and it is visually
The bold variation of the font family occupies more horizontal space and it is visually
more relevant. This font family is Times.
more relevant. This font family is Times.
The italic variation of the font family was initially used to exploit more vertical space
The italic variation of the font family was initially used to exploit more vertical space
by slanting the words, reducing too horizontal space. This font family is Times.
by slanting the words, reducing too horizontal space. This font Family is Times.
FONT TYPE VARIATIONS
There are five major variations of fonts, each one of the serves for a different purpose,
ranging from print-only fonts to ones that are barely readable and that are graphic.
1. There is the ROMAN style, which has serifs4 and a very polished, stylish and
detailed look. This style is used more for print uses, since the serifs and details help
the reader seamlessly transition between one character and another. This font family
is Baskerville.
2. There is the GOTHIC style. It can be easily recognized because of its
simplistic design and no serifs (that is why gothic is also called sans serif5).

4 Serif: Light details placed at the end of a stroke in a serif Font that serve for stylistic purposes.
5 Sans serif: Without serifs (from the french sans, without).


It is much smoother, modern and wider than the roman style. It is used more
in digital writings since, because there is not much detail in each glyph, it
reduces more the aliasing performed by the system and, thus, is easier to
read. This font family is Helvetica.
3.

There is the SCRIPT style, which has the handwritten characteristic look. Its
main purpose is to resemble like somebody elses handwriting. Though it is
quite difficult to read, it is oftenly used for signing formal letters or making
part of very little chunks of text. This font family is Edwardian Script itc.

4. There is the BLOCK style, which is one of the most primitive styles of font
widely used in the world. It is named block since it was melted in the blocked
moulds of the earliest printers and it resembles very remarkably the look of a
block. This font family is Glascow.
5. Finally, there is the GRAPHIC style, in which not many of the
standard typographic rules are featured. Graphic font families are
usually informal, typical of a brand or company and are used in
short headers or pieces of text. This font family is Big Dripper.

There are, obviously, plenty more sub variations in each kind of typographic style, but there
are too much of them to cover them in a document like this. For further research, visit the
glossary or the bibliography to find out more about fonts.
1.3 WHAT IS COMIC SANS?
Designers and font users have named Comic Sans as the most hated font of all time6. It
has a number of errors and aesthetic mistakes that, at a glimpse, make people disavowal the
typography and reject it at all costs. But not only because it is ugly, as people call it, is
why Comic Sans is often rejected: in fact, the naivet of people that use the font in quite
inappropriate contexts such as official country coins or grave titles, its omnipresence and
plenty other society related issues make it the most hated font of all time.
Comic Sans was created by the north American web and graphic designer Vincent Connare.
Melinda Gates (Bill Gates wife) asked Vincent to create a fun, fresh font family to replace
Times New Roman as the primary font in one of her projects, a program that was
discontinued shortly after its release, due to its poor utility and confusing interface and that
was supposed to ease the utilization of the earlier versions of Microsoft Windows and make
it seem like childs play instead of an intricate operative system, but failed at that purpose.
That program was Microsoft BOB. Though officially Comic Sans wasnt released in the
primary public version of Microsoft BOB, it eventually made its way into the typographic

6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=GUCcObwIsOs#t=94


catalogue that comes built in with Microsoft Windows. After it was included, it gained
plenty of fans that liked the look of it because it looks fresh, for kids, and very fun.
Although, with adepts, it also earned many haters who asseverate that the font is poorly
designed and lazily done.
CHAPTER 2:
TYPOGRAPHICAL AND SOCIAL APPROACH
2.1 Typographical Approach.
2.2.1 Alphabetical and Numerical Gliphs
Firstly, we analyse the height of the lower case x. In typographic terms, the height of the
x determines the height and, in some cases, the width of the lower case glyphs of the font
family. We will compare the height of the x with some lower case glyphs without ascenders
or descenders, such as the a, the c and the e.

Diagram 1 Differentiation of heights of Comic Sans lower case letter based on the height of x

The thicker line demonstrates the height of the x. The thinner one demonstrates the
height of the a and e glyphs. There is also a minor difference between the heights of the
a and the c. This shows that the designer didnt design precisely the heights of each
glyph.

Diagram 2 Differentiation of the widths of Comic Sans lower case letters based on the width of the a

Also, there is a noticeable width difference between the a, c and e glyphs. I took the
height and width of the a as a base and, contrary to other fonts, the width differed
drastically between the three. The c is much thinner than the a or the e, which is
much wider. Also, the e is slightly rotated to the left, not totally straight, in comparison to
most of the other glyphs in this font family.

Diagram 3 Differentiation between the lower and upper case glyphs of the letters S, D and B.

The lower case s has a serif stroke on its top end, the upper case S does not reach the
minimum height of an upper case glyph, the bowls7 of the B make two very irregular
shoulders8, the uppermost bigger and the down one shorter.

Diagram 4 Comparison between the lower case I and J glyphs from Comic Sans

The dots on the i and the j are not aligned. The stems9 of both characters are skewed.
The i does not touch the lower x height line, meaning it is slightly moved upwards.

Diagram 5 Comparison between the lower and upper case glyphs of the letters C, E and I from CSMS

Upper case C has a serif, but lower case C does not. Harsh and dirty strokes are seen on
the uppermost stems of the upper case E and upper case I. Also, the upper case I
does not fully touch the lower x height line, meaning its down arm is skewed. The upper
case E goes below the lower x height line, it has a very curvy down arm.

7 Bowl: Closed and rounded part of a glyph. For example, the B has two bowls, but the b only one.
8 Shoulder: Outermost rounded stroke on a glyph. For example, the n has a shoulder in the upper right
9 Stem: The main vertical stroke of a glyph. For example, the I has one stem, but the H has two.

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Diagram 6 Comparison between the glyphs of the numbers from 1 to 6 of Comic Sans

There strokes on the 1 stem, the 2 spine10, the 5 uppermost bar11 and the 6
terminal12 are poorly sketched and look unprofessional and curvy.
2.1.2 Kerning 13and spacing14
Changing both kerning an spacing is a nightmare in Comic Sans since, as shown before, the
form of the glyphs and their anatomies are not regular and they create different spaces for
each character, and when the kerning is set to levels below 0, in very low value numbers,
superposition of characters begins to appear in some combinations, but in others not. For
example, looking at the next example, a Times New Roman text with a kerning and
tracking of 0, has an even space between each an every one of the glyphs, as shown by the
little red bar between each character, which in some times suffers from a little, but even
superposition that can be easily overviewed, since it is a serif font and thus, serifs do not
compromise vastly the visual appealing of the text.

Diagram 7 Comparison between Times New Roman and Comic Sans. Kerning and spacing are 0

But looking at Comic Sans, it is quite visible that the childish and lazy strokes found in
almost the entirety of the typography not only make characters difficult to kern properly,
but there is a massive difference of space between some characters that differ way too
much in space, such as, in this case, the u and the I, the I and the c. There is also a
slight superposition of glyphs in each of the glyphs of the word fox

10 Spine: Main curved stroke. Similar to a stem, but curved. For example, the S and the 2 have stems.
11 Bar: Horizontal stroke, mainly found in the uppermost or middle part of glyphs such as A and E

12 Terminal: End of a single stroke, mostly ended with a serif. The 6 and the S have upper terminals.
13 Kerning: Uneven adjustment of space between glyphs.
14 Tracking: Even adjustment of space between glyphs.

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2.2 Social Implications
Although it is poorly designed, Comic Sans could have been considered as a casual
typography found into the font catalogue, since there are many more typographies on such
built in catalogue that are uglier and harder to comprehend than this one, if it was not for its
social implications. The font itself is ugly, but society overuse and usage out of context
made it even uglier.
Find a kids font written in the grave of your beloved family member, being used as the
main font for exposing the recent discovery of the Higgs boson, engraved in an official
coin of a country, or simply describing or advising people that there is any sort of serious
situation or danger ahead on a piece of paper is what primarily made Comic Sans as
detested as it is today.
With the overflow of affordable, easy to use and simple tools we have these days in the
world of informatics, is common that people that do not possess the proper knowledge on
the technological area tend to use tools that look more friendly, less digital and more
human. What they are actually doing is using the wrong tools in an improper way, and
repeating the same mistake so abundantly that it actually becomes annoying.
As hearing a song on the radio over and over eventually gets old, using the same font over
and over, not only repetitively but also in all sorts of different contexts that are
inappropriate and awkward, makes people think that the font is quite futile, overrated and
ugly.
I think it changed my thinking on the font. After seeing this example I realised no font
is bad when used appropriately. I believe the anger toward it is well deserved but it's not
really anger at the font, but at the applications. I believe Comic Sans is the most commonly
misused font. This can be rationally explained, for example it is designed to be casual and
therefore is not appropriate for formal messages. To say the font is "bad" however is
irrational. I believe it's the ubiquitous misuse that upsets designers.15 (Spacey138, 2011).
What the redditer above commented is a very accurate representation of how Comic Sans is
interpreted: the people, jaded of its ubiquitous presence, instead of analysing the problem
from the very roots, they just opt for ignoring it and nauseate to it when its present.
In reality, there are plenty of reasons to praise the use of comic sans: Some institutions,
such as the British Dyslexia Association, consider Comic Sans as an appropriate
typography to use in dyslexia treatment16, since it is easy to read, each of the characters,
with a proper positive kerning, are very distinguishable between themselves, and appeal to
childhood and innocence, and are more attractive to young dyslexics. Also, the font is so

15 Spacey138 (2013). Are there any examples of succesful use of the Font comic sans?. From:

http://www.reddit.com/r/typography/comments/1jdys2/are_there_any_examples_of_successful_use_
of_the/
16 http://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/about-dyslexia/further-information/dyslexia-style-guide.html

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ugly, it could just work fine for making comparisons between a good and a bad font, for
example, Comic Sans and Helvetica17.
CHAPTER 4:
CONCLUSION
Although Comic Sans MS is technically undesirable in the world of professional graphic
and typographic design, containing a plethora of errors, mistakes, bad decisions and
laziness, there are many more typographies that really deserve the status in which Comic
Sans is today regarded. The main reason, apart from the aesthetics, why Vincent Connares
opera prima is considered as the worst font of all time is more of a social aspect, of overuse,
misplace of context, and intolerance from the graphic design world. It is society who turns
something that is very normal or very casual into something either really popular or
unpopular, depending on how they see it.
In conclusion, its not Comic Sans fault or Vincent Connares fault that Comic Sans is
seen as ugly in such an over exagerated way, it is societys fault, since they are using the
right tools in the wrong way.

17 http://grafologiapublicitaria.blogspot.com/2012/01/helvetica-vs-comic-sans.html (Spanish)

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Wikipedia. (2013). Typography Wikipedia, the free enciclopedia. From:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typography. Date of Retreival: 18 Dec - 2013

Wikipedia. (2013). Escritura Sistemas de Escritura Wikipedia, la enciclopedia

libre. From: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escritura#Sistemas_de_escritura Date of
Retreival: 18 Dec - 2013

Michael, Vsauce. (2013). A Defense of Comic Sans. From:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUCcObwIsOs Date of Retreival: 18 Dec 2013

Typography Deconstructed (2010). The Anatomy of the type. From:

http://www.typographydeconstructed.com/category/anatomy-of-type/
Retreival: 18 Dec - 2013

Vanessa Lerner (2012). Helvtica vs Comic Sans. From:

http://grafologiapublicitaria.blogspot.com/2012/01/helvetica-vs-comic-sans.html
Date of Retreival: 2 Jan - 2014

Ambrose, Harris (2005). Tipografa Calidad o forma de letra con la que est
impresa una obra. Barcelona, Espaa. Parramn Date of Retreival: 20 Nov - 2013

Date

of

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