Zahlen, bitte! The most hated font in the world: Comic Sans

From a font for speech bubbles to the most hated font in the world: a petition with 5117 signatures.

Nov 26, 2024 at 10:45 pm CET

7 min. read

By

Markus Will

In 2024, the font "Comic Sans MS" (usually just called Comic Sans) celebrated its 30th birthday. What Microsoft calls a "groovy font" has attracted numerous opponents to this day: they created petitions and counter-campaigns and gave it the unflattering title of "most hated font in the world".

It all started quite harmlessly: Initially, Comic Sans was developed by Microsoft for lettering in speech bubbles in an auxiliary software for Windows, but over time it became part of the standard equipment of Windows and macOS. Over time, the font was misused so often that not only font and web designers rolled their eyes. In the pioneering days of the Internet, Comic Sans was everywhere: in the construction site gif or the Real Player.

In this section, we present amazing, impressive, informative and funny figures ("Zahlen") from the fields of IT, science, art, business, politics and, of course, mathematics every Tuesday. The wordplay "Zahlen, bitte!" for a section about numbers is based on the ambiguity of the German word "Zahlen." On one hand, "Zahlen" can be understood as a noun in the sense of digits and numerical values, which fits the theme of the section. On the other hand, the phrase "Zahlen, bitte!" is reminiscent of a waiter's request in a restaurant or bar when they are asked to bring the bill. Through this association, the section acquires a playful and slightly humorous undertone that catches the readers' attention and makes them curious about the presented numbers and facts.

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The biggest battles have now been fought and the font has long since arrived in pop culture. It even has advocates: the font is considered easy to read for people with dyslexia. And even Apple seemed to be fascinated by it.

Planned as a font for speech bubbles

The development began when font developer Vincent Connare received a beta version of the BOB software package from Microsoft: The program had a menu navigation called Social Interface: with many graphic elements as well as cartoon characters the dog "Rover", people less familiar with the PC were to be introduced to the operation in a playful way. During testing, Connare was annoyed by the speech bubbles used to address users: He felt that the Times New Roman font was too formal for the casual context.

Vincent Connare, born September 26, 1960 in Boston, Massachusetts. He studied painting and photography at the New York Institute of Technology and earned a master's degree in type design at the University of Reading in the UK. From 1993 to 1999, he worked as a type designer at Microsoft and created the font Comic Sans as well as Trebuchet MS. He was also involved in the Webdings symbols and later in the Marlett font. The picture was taken in 2012.

(Image: CC BY-SA 3.0, Vincent Connare)

In October 1994, Connare spent three days developing a font that was actually only intended for the speech bubbles in BOB. He based it on graphic novels such as "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns" by John Costanza or "Watchmen" by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. With Comic Sans, Connare created a font that was based on these comic books: "The comics used a uniform style that was clearly different from the font style used in newspaper comics. I also noticed that many people used inappropriate punctuation in comic strip speech bubbles."

In the style of a handwritten note

Comic Sans is a font without ("sans") serifs, which simulates handwriting through asymmetrical and inconsistent letter shapes. However, as the font did not fit into the tight grid of the speech bubbles, it was not used in the software package. Which was no bad thing: MS Bob turned out to be a flop. The program showed some structural weaknesses and only sold around 58,000 copies. The next plan was to use it in Microsoft's 3D Moviemaker, which also fell through. Instead, it was included for the first time in the Windows 95 Plus Pack and then migrated to the system fonts of the operating system and its successors.

Comic Sans appeared just at the time when computers were enabling more creative work. Whereas previously printers and operating systems had often limited the creative stylistic means for printed matter, new techniques such as True Type fonts now gave free rein to creativity. This also meant that Comic Sans was not only used for invitations, flyers, children's poems or school assignments, but for all possible and impossible uses.

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Whether on signs, company logos, memorial stones or even obituaries –, the creativity of using a playful font for serious matters knew no bounds during its peak popularity. Many lecturers thought it was a good idea to spice up a boring lecture with a "cheeky" font. This didn't make the lecture any less boring, but at least it had annoying writing. This provoked counter-movements that would have preferred to ban the font completely.

Comic Sans and Comic Sans Bold in examples.

And even Apple couldn't escape the hype: The manufacturer caused annoyance with the font's developer because it used Comic Sans for its online postcard service iCard in 2000 without asking. With the font Chalkboard, the Cupertino-based company also developed a font that was recognizably based on Comic Sans.

Dan Gilbert, boss of the basketball NBA team Cleveland Cavaliers, was not amused when NBA star LeBron James announced his move to Miami Heat in 2010. He wrote an angry, open letter about James, but caused unintentional comedy by publishing it in Comic Sans. The meme phenomenon is closely linked to Comic Sans as a font.

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Natürlich gabs auch zu Comic Sans ein Musikvideo. Der kanadische Youtuber Gunnarolla besang 2012 den Schriftfont zusammen mit Andrew Huang.

Criticism from the source of inspiration

Dave Gibbons, whose typeface was one of the sources of inspiration for Comic Sans, seems unhappy with his involuntary role. He told the Guardian in 2009: "It's a shame they didn't just use the original font because Comic Sans is a real mess. I think it's a particularly ugly typeface. The other thing that really bothers me is that they used a capital I with bars on it: It looks all wrong to the eye. And when you see it on storefronts in, it's awful."

Designers Dave and Holly Combs created the Ban Comic Sans initiative in 1999. And as recently as 2015, a petition was still online with 5117 signatories. André Kramer called it a "means of disfigurement" in c't magazine.

None of this was planned by the inventor. It was only supposed to be a font for a few speech bubbles. That's why the inventor's reaction to the negative hype is somewhere between amused and annoyed. "If you love Comic Sans, you know nothing about typography. But if you hate Comic Sans, then you don't know anything about typography either and you should find another hobby."

Even the scientific community has looked into the hype surrounding Comic Sans [PDF]. Advocates also see it as a font that helps people with dyslexia,
Today, there is a tongue-in-cheek advice website that can be referred to if someone has used Comic Sans inappropriately again. And Comic Sans has even made it onto a Canadian 25-cent coin . The name Comic Sans was even the inspiration for a Canadian short film and a Croatian comedy. And in 2011, an updated version of the font was created with Comic Sans Pro.

LeBron James also has a sense of humor: he sometimes uses Comic Sans himself in his Instagram stories. Quite a lot of hype about a font for speech bubbles.