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Comic Sans Day is a thing

Comic Sans has been ruining PowerPoint presentations since 1994. Now it has its own day… Every first Friday of July it’s the official Comic Sans Day.

Comic Sans is the world’s most socially awkward font, as determined by every “serious” website designer. A number of people thought otherwise, campaigning to “show the world true art” by giving Comic Sans its very own day. Every first Friday of July it’s the official Comic Sans Day. We’re a bit nostalgic about Comic Sans, so why not?

Comic Sans: Ruining PowerPoint presentations since 1994

Comic Sans was originally created by Microsoft designer Vincent Connare to liven the humorous tone of the comic book speech bubbles for Microsoft Word. It was there to serve one purpose. But popularity got the better of Comic Sans and people started using it to notify any serious matters to the general public, believing it was a gentler, funny font.

Suddenly Comic Sans was everywhere, getting misused in church leaflets, on disease informational pamphlets, as restroom signage, in employment contracts and stern letters to the editor. It was even used to announce the Higgs Boson, was thrown on a Dutch war memorial and most recently used by Trump’s lawyer in a statement about former national security advisor Michael Flynn admitting to making false statements to the FBI.

The font became a viral annoyance in the lives of people, eventually reaching meme status.

The designer of Comic Sans has only used his font once

Vincent Connare, whose Twitter page describes himself as “Creator of the world’s favourite font?!”, also has a boldface claim: He’s only used the font once.

In an interview with The Guardian in 2017, Connare said “I was having trouble changing my broadband to Sky so wrote them a letter in Comic Sans, saying how disappointed I was. I got a £10 refund. In those cases, I would recommend it.”

“The basic theory is that typography should not shout – but Comic Sans shouts,” he added.

Worst fonts in the world…

#Worstfontsever was created to poke fun at typefaces designers despise “due to popularity, ugliness or both”.

Arial is known as Helvetica’s weird, ugly cousin. Trajan is the font used on every movie poster, regardless of genre or time period. And then there’s Papyrus. It’s the font you use to spell out the word “Egypt” on a school history paper. You might have also seen Papyrus as a favourite on café menus, as branding for credit unions and most famously as the logo for the Avatar movies.

So, this Comic Sans Day, are you willing to give this type one more chance to live again? If so, there’s a WordPress plugin just for you. With this plugin, your website will automatically have Comic Sans font for the day, and every Comic Sans Day from now on.

At iFactory, we’re unlikely to use Comic Sans on your website, but we will create beautiful, unique styling perfect for your business. Check out our work and get in contact with us today.

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