"It is analogous to showing up for a black tie event in a clown costume."

This poor unsuspecting country girl joined Housie and I in a vino-induced (yeah cheap market bottles!) conversation last Saturday re: the propogation of Helvetica in the corporate world; the childishness of Comic Sans; and why Palatino is significantly clearer than Times New. Apologies for bringing typeface to house parties. Eeeeee.

You know those certain 'I told you so' moments that people relish so much? Like when they make drunken wagers concerning the singer of 'Should I Stay or Should I Go Now?' using Hoegaarden as collateral and then win? Or when they warn a fellow girlfriend about a dude's general suckiness only to mutter those four words when said fellow girlfriend is crying into a pillow due to said suckiness? Or when they blog about a font and then MoMA up and runs an exhibit about it? And Gary Hustwit (holla that sweet documentary about Wilco) produces a film about it? And Slate.com publishes a slideshow on it?

This is exactly how I feel after posting about Helvetica and fonts in gen; it's nice to feel The Proverbial Man giving you a pat on the back and whisper: "I agree, young lady." One particular posting struck a chord (from the article about which fonts authors write in and why):

Anne Fadiman: "My favorite fonts are unrepentantly anti-Helvetican. Most of my books have been set in Walbaum, which sounds like a chain store but is in fact an early-19^th-century font designed by Justus Erich Walbaum, a German punchcutter whose luscious serifs may have been influenced by his early apprenticeship to a confectioner. When I was the editor of the American Scholar, we set our text in New Baskerville and our titles in Mrs. Eaves*, a neo-letterpress font based on types by 18^th-century English printer John Baskerville and named after the woman who was first his housekeeper, then his mistress, then his wife. Mr. Baskerville and Mrs. Eaves interacted gracefully both in life and on the page. Although it's a thrill to see my words printed in such elegant fonts, I'd never actually write in them. I'd be afraid that my prose would become too precious, like that of a student of mine who, until nudged toward something more prosaic, refused to compose in anything but Garamond. I attempt to counter my natural tendency to overwrite by printing out my work in an aggressively foursquare version of Times Roman, one more heavily inked than Times New Roman or CG Times. It exists only on Hewlett-Packard #92286P, an obsolete font cartridge that plugs into an obsolete printer. When my printer dies, my beloved font will die as well."

So see? People do give more than a second thought to which font they write in. Granted, these people are writers by trade, aka they can eat and buy clothes with their earnings. Still, we're getting somewhere.

*I particularly like the back-story of Mrs Eaves (which we learned about in class); props to the bastardised women of history.

"Vince"

My hatred of Comic Sans has not lessened since I last posted; if anything, it has worsened. I have since been made privy to various heinous uses of the CS:

• an official letter from the Canadian government demanding money
• a power point presentation from a reputable 60-something public health professor
• restaurant menus
  
• corporate newsletters

But... Rejoice! I have also been injected with a welcome dose of You Are Not Alone thanks to a glorious new website to which Slate provided me a link: "Ban Comic Sans."

AMEN. I plan on buying some pins for Housie and me, perhaps even printing off my own stickers guerilla style and implementing my own viral marketing campaign in the alleyways of Melbourne (just next to the rotting fish, VB bottles, and St Jeromes).

Ban Comic Sans puts it like this:

"Like the tone of a spoken voice, the characteristics of a typeface convey meaning. The design of the typeface is, in itself, its voice. Often this voice speaks louder than the text itself. Thus when designing a "Do Not Enter" sign the use of a heavy-stroked, attention-commanding font such as Impact or Arial Black is appropriate. Typesetting such a message in Comic Sans would be ludicrous."

They also likened Comic Sans to my circus comment (see post title). Ha! "I told you so."