Caslon
Helvetica
Univers

The one I’m working on (Codename: Furtive) is pretty horrid. I’m sure once it’s released, it’ll make the top-5, no prob. Also, you might want to use the Wayback Machine and search for free TTF fonts circa 1996. They’re pretty nasty, too.

Or do you mean common faces which are technically decent but ugly?

There are some really bad typefaces out there by folks who didn’t know what they were doing, but they aren’t available from reputable foundries and generally shunned by graphic designers. There are some spectacular examples of typefaces used badly, or wrongly chosen for the application at hand. Assuming a typeface meets the criteria its designer set out to achieve, both technically and aesthetically, I don’t think one can say any particular face can be called “bad” or “good”.

Tiresias.

R

HaleyFiege,

Which face do you like best, even if you like neither. Or better, which is worst, Helvetica, or Universe?

Giampa

I was pointing out how silly the question was.

In his book “While You’re Reading”, Gerard Unger points out that he never thought there was such a thing as a bad font before Emigre came along. Just food for thought.

The worst font ever created, in concept and execution, is Linotype Mailbox.
Take a moment to get over the execrable premise, hypothetically accept the assumption that it could be a good idea in the first place, and from this basis you can then begin to see how poorly it was carried out.

James

Well, that’s an easy shot these days, but in Emigre’s heyday, few would step up to the plate in a public forum to protest. Did I say few? I meant two.

Digitally speaking, it’s quite easy to distinguish a technically bad typeface; convert it to letterpress. Emigre’s fonts are dismal failures. Even Journal is quite goofy, and it is the one Emigre face I like a lot. Apparently, if you can’t draw or punchcut a typeface, letterpress technology will just show you for what you are. This has nothing to do with “worst” (which is apparently an aesthetic decision), just “bad.”

Gerald

Cerulean, Linotype Mailbox is a new one to me. It’s pretty awful, but look at the year... 1997 was when everybody was adding @ symbols to logos. This is bandwagonism gone bad.

Foundries need to expire the lame typefaces instead of letting them decay in their catalogues. No other industry leaves crap in their catalogues forever! Come on people!

convert it to letterpress.

Why would you expect faces designed for one medium to work in another without adaptation?
You know how much difficulty there has always been in adapting the foundry classics to new technology, whether hot metal, photo, or digital, offset or monitor.
Would you attempt to print a finely-detailed 19th century face designed for coated paper on a laid rag stock, in the manner of 17th century printing?

expire the lame typefaces

I once retired a typeface, but people still kept wanting to buy it.

Official Cherokee Font

No disrespect intended to the Cherokee Nation, or their language or culture, but this is a very poorly crafted example to offer as their official script specimen.

This question is, as is, almost impossible to answer. 99% of the free fonts on the web are pieces of s***. now if the question was something like “the worst typeface, according to you, within the well established and renowned foundries”, it would still be hard to answer - and extremely subjective - but, even though I know I’m far from being original, I’d personally say Comic Sans, ironically created by this guy vincent Connarre, whose last name means “moron” in french (it’s actually even worse than that but we are on a civilized forum).

dr

Rotis
Zapf Chancery
Papyrus
Serpentine
Critter
Comic Sans
Lithos
And many more...

One more hater of Rotis...

This type is used by major graphic designers, it composes the entire type encyclopedia “Typo” by Ott, Friedl and stein...

Weird.

dr

Phew, I’m glad someone notched the Comic Sans mark. While there are many horrid typefaces out there, none has done such a masterful job of polluting corporate documents, birthday cards, sympathy cards, birth certificates, death certificates, company signs...oh you get the picture. It’s been beaten to death more times than not. I’d prefer any number of bad typefaces over Comic Sans. What a terrible terrible society polluting creation.

Comic Sans.
Hobo.
Bank Gothic.

For all Comic Sans haters, please check this one out. Scary reading! http://bancomicsans.com/home.html

... Not to mention Souvenir. http://www.linotype.com/802/itcsouvenir-family.html Ah... the list is long!

Do you know the book Types Best Remembered, Types Best Forgotten?

There are some interesting texts by well-known typographers about their personal “worst typeface ever”.

There does come a point where something is so bad, it becomes good again.
I would honestly use Comic Sans, if the right opportunity turned up .

Must disagree about ITC Souvenir as its currently quite a ’hot’ font, at least in London at the moment.

Hobo - if memory serves was used on a Dylan cover?

One more hater of Rotis...

Add me to that list too. Can’t stand it.

But I’m tired of threads like this.

Small Caps beat me to it with Souvenir. In fact, many of the ITC faces with their oversized x-heights annoy me.

Comic Sans, and crapola faces designed by amateurs are givens.

Sand, anyone?

http://www.djmisc.com

As a typographer - I’d say any typeface misued - such as the menu I had to try to read yesterday. Alba in 8 point for descriptions of named foods... - yikes!

If James R. Harris would be alive to respond - he’d tell you ITC Eras. Why? Because it doesn’t lean enough to be an oblique/italic and it isn’t straight up — it’s just there, in limbo - leaning....

Personally, I hold a grudge towards HOBO. I can’t stand that face. A quickie job came up for a window washer - and his font was HOBO... why - because he made his logo himself and HOBO was on the darn computer.... LOL

P.S. In defense of Emigre - when the faces first hit the publishing industry - they were quickly embraced — but for front cover type. How many time did Tony Greco use Matrix — oh, and it worked? Not all their faces are winners, but they did add a nice amount of a “new” style to help folks create new looks for front covers....

Triplex got its time in there — and who could forget Mason - it was ahead of it’s time... okay so 3 fonts in heavy use for a year or two is still quite a typographical accomplishment.

Wasn’t there a thread like this not so long ago?

In defense of Sand, it’s not the worst handwriting font out there, and it actually passes really well for Toulouse-Lautrec’s handwriting, so it can be nice for period pieces. But why Apple made it a system font I will never understand.

Poor Comic Sans takes a beating again. It is what it is and has been badly used by many but the real reason is just that it was bundled with MS apps and “free” to everyone with no understanding of typography. No need to jump all over Vince or to ridicule his last name.

ChrisL

What are the worst assignments.......?

Maybe this will add some bashing to the list of the worst typefaces ever. Personally I cannot stand Courier and Arial (not Helvetica, but exactly Arial!), but that’s personal.

Small Caps beat me to it with Souvenir. In fact, many of the ITC faces with their oversized x-heights annoy me.

Saying that a lot of ITC fonts are quite popular again, Avant garde, serif gothic, even souvenir. I was lucky enough once to do a classs with Ed Benguiat, what a great bloke, anyway he was showing his work and up came ITC Tiffany, a hush came across the room. He looked at it a few seconds then said, biggest piece of crap I ever did, but one of my biggest sellers...go figure. And then the truest words I have ever heard....it’s not whether you do crap, we all do crap....as long as you know it’s crap.

By the way I hate Caxton.....I know that’s crap!

Cheers

I think that Mailbox font just might win in this category. It’s just too much.

Try @a@c@0@o in the font preview and challenge your friends to read it!

And I thought i/I/l/L / rn / m could be bad

And then the truest words I have ever heard....it’s not whether you do crap, we all do crap....as long as you know it’s crap.

If only we had the option of just not releasing the crap.

mistral

How do you say a font is bad, let alone worst? Doesn’t it depend too much on personal preferences??

:P
shreyas

How do you say a font is bad, let alone worst? Doesn’t it depend too much on personal preferences?

It’s usually a personal thing, but in some cases fonts are just bad from practical or functional standpoints. Arial is a bad font because it tries to be a Helvetica knockoff, but inconsistently blends features of Helvetica and MT Grot to create something truly ugly. Comic sans fails because it doesn’t actually look like comic book lettering.

Of course, this sort of reasoning can break down pretty quickly. For example, many of the Emigre fonts often fail at being useful outside the context of Emigre, or even being legible at all. But they did succeed at creating a dialog about type and type design that had a huge impact on design and has survived the magazine itself, so they succeeded conceptually as a catalyst for furthering creativity.

Ah yes, true.
I guess what I was trying to say was theres a thin line between trying to name “the worst font” and “my least favourite font(which automatically must make it the worst font)”

Ps- i dont think comic sans failed. Like Chris mentioned, its just been abused.

shreyas

Arial is a bad font because it tries to be a Helvetica knockoff, but inconsistently blends features of Helvetica and MT Grot...

Do you really think “blending features” was Robin Nicholas’ modus operandi?
Look at the other faces he has designed, such as Nimrod and Clarion.
He is a more accomplished designer than Max Miedinger.
As you note with reference to MT Grotesque, Robin went back to the 19th century grotesque. In so doing he was ahead of the trend that has recently seen several foundries release grots in that quirkier, older genre.
Arial would get more respect if it had been hyped like Helvetica, but the foundry BS is lacking—generally the best they do is apologize for it, saying it’s a good screen font!
It could be argued that Arial is a deconstruction of Helvetica, putting some fibre back into the white bread.

Hehe.. Vag rounded is just like a straightened out comic sans. Realised that during our college fest, when we used vag to match the identity designed by satya(above). :D

Then again, if a typeface is used in the wrong place(perhaps at the wrong time) it doesnt qualify it to be “the worst typeface”. The fault lies with the user and not the typeface itself.

@hanabot—> What IS your project anyway?

shreyas

I actually like Papyrus :(

Do you really think “blending features” was Robin Nicholas’ modus operandi?

Given what I have read about the history of Arial and the motivation behind its creation, yes.

He is a more accomplished designer than Max Miedinger.

That doesn’t make Arial any better—nobody’s perfect. Ed Benguiat is more accomplished than either of the two, and he knocked out a few bad types, too.

As you note with reference to MT Grotesque, Robin went back to the 19th century grotesque. In so doing he was ahead of the trend that has recently seen several foundries release grots in that quirkier, older genre.

Can you tell me where I can read more about those details? The best I’ve read on the matter is Mark Simonson’s The Scourge of Arial which points to MT grot as the source, and I have seen that article cited by other sources I consider reputable. As for Arial being a trailblazing design, that may be so, but Arial is still pretty hard on the eyes, at least IMHO.

Vag rounded is just like a straightened out comic sans.

Its not at all a straightened comic sans but a rounded grotesque, you can say. It was actually designed for Volkswagen AG in 1979 by Adrian Williams. And I think its a great typeface.

Peignot, Souvenir, and Arial.

I actually like Papyrus :(

Me too. But I wasn’t happy when it showed up on my sister’s wedding invites.

Given what I have read about the history of Arial and the motivation behind its creation, yes.

Don’t believe everything you read.
Why not open the fonts up and compare them?

nobody’s perfect.

I thought you were talking about the process (“blending features”) not the end result.

Can you tell me where I can read more about those details?

As I said, open up the fonts.
Also, take a look at some printed samples of grots from c.1900 (not revivals, even a little nuance loses the flavour of the original, as can be seen with G.G. Lange’s Akzidenz Grotesk).

“There are only two kinds of typefaces: those you know how to use, and those you don’t.”
Attributed to Alvin Lustig

I cannot track down a source for this quote, which I read somewhere, with its attribution, about 1991. Whether it is from Lustig or not, I do haul it out whenever this hoary subject gets raised.

That said, it may well take an extremely talented or sensitive typographer to design something excellent with some of the faces mentioned above.

**********
Unfortunately, too many people [including myself] over too many years have tried to do things such as printing “a finely-detailed 19th century face designed for coated paper on a laid rag stock, in the manner of 17th century printing.” Blame the perpetrator, not the typeface. It might be that there’s no good reason to print Emigre’s Journal, or many other types, by letterpress.

powers

I think Papyrus is a true testament to the ingenuity and modern ways of thinking of the ancient Egyptians who designed it.

This list of bad typefaces is getting long! And once upon a time I used to be the first to sniff haughtily whenever the word Mistral was mentioned. That is, until I stumbled across some quite nice stuff back from the 1950’s. Take a look at this picture. I think Mistral works quite well with these colours.This thread shows how easy it is to make a list with all the bad typefaces. Maybe we should start another with the best ones instead? Clarendon is my all time favorite.

I think that mistral is good. But from what I’ve read lately, it’s also a pretty popular font with cover designers of hard-core pornography, so it can have some pretty…um…intense associations.

No offense, but I don’t like Gill Sans too.

Mistral suffered from MASSIVE overuse at one time.

This type of thread is so subjective.

papyrus, comic sans, and curls mt all make me gag.

i believe they are just abused and misused..and polluting the atmosphere!!

papyrus should be banned from hair/beauty salon identities, comic sans should be banned from anything but maybe...maaaaybe comics (BUT even in comics i still find it annoying), and curls mt...ugh.

im thinkin a lot of opinions on typefaces are personal prefs.

thats my little input. regardless, as a designer...we’re always type nazis!

Like that character from Seinfeld whenever I see Papyrus I can’t help but scream “Serenity Now!” Maybe I should check in here… http://www.serenityspaconroe.com/

Not so much a typeface, but I think the futura-style lowercase ’a’ is kind of ugly, and it’s not that uncommon in ads and logos I see daily.

I like the signs at this local place better than the soulless logo.

How about Sand?

If over-exposure is any measure, how y’all feelin ’bout Super Duty :-)?

You read my mind.

Nick

“Would you attempt to print a finely-detailed 19th century face designed for coated paper on a laid rag stock, in the manner of 17th century printing?”

You are kidding, right? This is the 21st century. All type exists concurrently. Some works, some doesn’t.

Gerald

I don’t think Arial is getting nearly enough attention. I think that when you factor in the impact a given typeface has had on the world, Arial is by far the worst thing to ever happen to typography.

On a purely technical level, Arial is horrendous. Glyphs like the capital C and the lowercase g are so outrageously lumpy and malformed it honestly looks like the product of someone working through his first or second week of experience with Bezier tools. Calling it “amateur” is a genuine understatement as even most amateurs would presumably have the dignity to keep such terribly drawn glyphs from being released.

If I could sum up my criticism of the face, it’s that ultimately, it suffers from a shocking lack of craftsmanship.

I’ve always seen Arial as much more a clone of Univers than Helvetica (compare the 1, the lowercase t, the capital G and even the R— that god awful R— to some extent, among many other examples). But when compared to either of these two fine works, Arial’s flaws are even more apparent. Helvetica and Univers, regardless of your subjective take on them, both offer stable balance and details. The letters fit together nicely and the curves within each glyph look intentionally placed by a qualified designer. Arial has none of these qualities; words and sentences look cobbled together, stroke thickness seems to bend and warp, and it’s wonky curves careen along their paths like bumper cars.

In my opinion, one of the worst aspects of its design is the way horizontal edges don’t run parallel to the baseline. For an example of how this can be done right, look at something like Akzidenz Grotesk or Franklin Gothic. These fonts use this characteristic create a slightly less formal, cheerier atmosphere than something like Univers or Helvetica might. But in the case of Arial, unlike these far superior fonts, it looks like a mistake rather than an intentional aspect of the design.

Nowadays, though, the worst part about Arial is it’s nightmarish ubiquity. Sometimes I feel like it’s closing in on me, like something out of the Twilight Zone. It really does appear to vastly outnumber the use of Helvetica on local signage around shopping centers and mom-and-pop shops (at least here in Northern California). Signs like these tend to be awful from the start, often stretched and compressed in non-uniform ways or kerned recklessly (if at all). But it’s insult to injury when Arial is used instead of a standby like Helvetica, as it combines an already bad design with an even worse typeface.

Far more concerning, however, is its sudden prevalence in serious media, such as feature films and television, by designers who should honestly know better. Look at the logo for the show Ugly Betty; unless they were trying to make some kind of typographical joke that plays on the show’s title, what could they have possibly been thinking? I remember seeing it in the trailer for the movie Over the Hedge, in the on-screen graphics for the mock newscasts in V for Vendetta, and even the TITLES and end credits in Michael Clayton for god’s sake. What kind of bizarro world is this?

Anyway, don’t interpret my overuse of dramatic adjectives as being tongue-in-cheek; for all my whining, I really do mean it when I say Arial is the worst thing to happen to typography. Comic Sans doesn’t even compare— it may not be the world’s greatest art, but it’s a gimmicky font that was never trying to be anything more than that. Arial, with the help of Windows, has unfortunately presented itself to the world as a serious alternative to some of the pillars of typography, when it’s little more than an insult in my opinion.

Phew! Glad I finally let that out!

**** comic sans

Let’s make a list. Put your name behind at most three typefaces or add a font that is not yet listed.

Rotis | mark eikema + ...
Trebuchet | mark eikema + ...
Zapfino | mark eikema + ...

Grrrrrrr!!
You hate Zapfino_?

:P

How about the worst glyphs of all times? I’ll start with the ’g’ in interstate. ruins the whole typeface for me.

.........................................................
Bison Design
Spön

I hate Zapfino too.

Me three on Zapfino. There was a time when I thought it was just badly used, but now that I’ve explored a lot a script faces, I think Zapfino is just too wild to be a good typeface. I could see that style of handwriting working really well when it’s actually written, but there’s a nasty dissonance created by that kind of expert calligraphy being rendered digitally.

Mistral makes an appearance in our new “Used and Abused” section:
http://www.type.co.uk/index.php?p=Used

Type Eating Itself?

Joe, that one reminds me of all the idiots out there who insist on using Avant Garde to typeset the phrase avant garde. I once saw someone try setting all the headings in a book in Avant Garde just because a chapter title contained the phrase. That one really made me want to scream.

>Joe, that one reminds me of all the idiots out there who insist on using Avant Garde to typeset the phrase avant garde.

Such madness continues to this day - can you believe the people responsible for the Helvetica movie packaging used Helvetica - use some imagination per-lese! At least Cooper Tires had the good sense to ditch Cooper Black after fifty years

beauty is in the eyes of the beholder

Ahem, i notice that the person who initiated this thread seems to have gone into oblivion. Hanabot, what IS your project about, im curious.

:P

shreyas

 Sii: The Serenity logo isn’t exactly small-caps Papyrus but looks something similar—not that Papyrus has small capitals. (The E is a give-away, plus it’s differently distressed.)

—Joel

comic sans
myriad
times new roman (i’m sorry. i hate it. case closed.)

Niki!

Russell, it’s the ends of curved strokes like in a, s, c. Instead of terminating approximately perpendicular to the stroke like most other sans, or cutting horizontally like Helvetica, Arial compromises and cuts them just slightly off-horizontal.

Arial looks way better on the internet than helvetica does.

THERE I SAID IT!

gotcha, cerulean.

HaleyFiege ,“Arial looks way better on the internet than helvetica does.”
... and your point is? :-)

R

sii: thanks...i just threw up looking at that website. papyrus should be banned. >:(

and even if arial does look better on the internet, doesn’t make the typeface better than helvetica!

this forum is great. ..

poor connare.

“Comic Sans was NOT designed as a typeface but as a solution to a problem with the often overlooked part of a computer program’s interface, the typeface used to communicate the message.

There was no intention to include the font in other applications other than those designed for children when I designed Comic Sans. The inspiration came at the shock of seeing Times New Roman used in an inappropriate way.” -Connare

not that i’m justifying comic sans...because regardless it still makes me gag. :\

used and inappropriately abused typeface...

Another vote for Comic Sans... it’s terrible. Agree about Arial, as well. Chicago was terrible in it’s day, too.

*SLIGHTLY OFF TOPIC MODE ON*

Funny some mention Myriad here.

I just come back from letypographe.com, a french forum run by Jean-Francois Porchez (and others fine typographers), where I’ve been bashed *big time* for saying that Myriad owes a lot (i mean A LOT) to Frutiger.

I’ve been told there that Myriad bears the influence of Sumner Stone, that it is way more “calligraphic”... All things I don’t contest, but still... No Frutiger, no Myriad, am I alone to think that way?

I mean, if you read the official documentation of Avenir, for example, Futura is mentioned as inspiration, things are clear. But Adobe’s staff never aknowledged Frutiger to be at the origin of Myriad.

*SLIGHTLY OFF TOPIC MODE OFF*

Just to say that I’m not crazy about Myriad either :-)

dr

one more thing

I live in Istanbul, and the poorness of typographic culture in the last 30 years is making any typophile suffering on an every day basis, when looking at the shops, packagings and advertisements (although the trend is slowly changing since 2-3 years thanks to people like, huh, me, among a few others). You think I’m kidding? Do you know how many books are available, in turkish language, about typography? ONE. It was released earlier this year, and it’s not very good. There is a new magazine since one and a half year which talks about type in a quite nice and interesting way, and people are beginning to open to type culture...

... but still, most of the time, we have to say hello to some absolutely horrid typefaces, composed in huge sizes and ugly colors. So, let me add to the list the ones I see very often here:

- Black Chancery
- University Roman
- Stop
- Revue
- Flash / Slager
- Balloon

... Sorry I can’t continue I feel sick.

dr

Myriad is not Frutiger; look at the M for example. Yes they are similar, yes the look and feel are close. But I can say the same thing about dozens of other typeface comparisons.

And as far as that goes, you can make the case that nearly ALL of the popular, contemporary, corporate-style humanist sans out there today are merely derivative of good old Frutiger and Officina Sans.

Typefaces I hate? I despise anything with a “Benguiat” in its name. The appeal of Bank Gothic totally escapes me. Most script faces are just plain annoying. If one more Windows user sends me a file formatted in Trebuchet, I may hurt someone. And I loathe Arial with every fiber of my being.

I bought Papyrus back in mid 90’s it is a great design, but so over used it has zero value these days.
I mention this because really I think anything that is overused should be avoided (The same goes for
stock photography). One reason I like expensive typefaces, is because most designers do not get them,
and most clients look for less expensive solutions as well. Individuality is where it is at.

amv,

I don’t dispute your assesment of Arial at all, but I went looking for “the way horizontal edges don’t run parallel to the baseline.” and could not see it. On the Arial fonts that come loaded on my work PC all seem parallel to the base line. (I zoomed in really close in wire frame) Perhaps you can explain.

R

A little off topic but an interesting interactive on Arial Vs. Helvetica.

I don’t dispute your assesment of Arial at all, but I went looking for “the way horizontal edges don’t run parallel to the baseline.” and could not see it.
Look at the C.

I think I’m preferring satya’s off topic.

Have you taken the Arial or Helvetica quiz yet?
http://www.iliveonyourvisits.com/helvetica/

or read how to spot Arial?
http://www.ms-studio.com/articlesarialsid.html

My favorite was from France - and I can’t find it now. I think it was Tophy52 who actually placed one over the other and made little indications as to the basic differences.

****************

Ryan -

Yes in name, Myriad is not Frutiger - but oh my —- there is no doubt where they stole their design. This one has been through the courts, and I understand it was settled.

It may be one of those “American” type laws - change three characters - and voila — a new typeface is born.

BTW - that is what use to happen between the foundries... in days of cold and hot type....

> I just come back from letypographe.com, a french forum run by Jean-Francois Porchez (and others fine typographers), where I’ve been bashed *big time* for saying that Myriad owes a lot (i mean A LOT) to Frutiger.

There has been an extensive discussion on that subject on this forum as well, you can find it here. I’m not sure on which page it starts about myriad/frutiger though. But I thought you might be interested. :)
(and so that the discussion isn’t done all over again, just like this thread itself) ;)

Jackie:

My favorite was from France - and I can’t find it now. I think it was Tophy52 who actually placed one over the other and made little indications as to the basic differences.

>> you can find it in the first pages of “Helvetica, Homage to a typeface” by Lars Muller. and it is, indeed, amazing.

dr

Comic Sans

Oh yeah, Myriad owes a lot to Frutiger. The cap C, for example, the leg of the R — you’re definitely not alone on this. Myriad can actually be nice if used very, very minimally and calmly, though I don’t think I’d ever choose it.

Btw David, I’m Bulgarian — komshi! And good thing that type books are more like picture books, right? Turks AND Bulgarians can love them.

My point is that both arial and helvetica are good for different things. So why all the hate?

vanina:

I’m sure turks can love typo books, whatever they may look like... then, why nobody’s writing one? Is there a lot of typo books in Bulgaria?

Haley, and some others:

In my own opinion, Arial is good for nothing. I’ve seen it WAY too much on quickly designed and printed stuff everywhere, right out of MS Word or MS Publisher or MS Whatever. It’s been polluting the whole environment, worse than petrol in the ocean. You might dislike Helvetica for various reasons, but its design is so much better than Arial. I’ve been a typo teacher, and you would be AMAZED by the amount of students who just can’t make the difference between Arial and Helvetica. This is a disgrace... I mean, quality alternatives for Helvetica, if needed, are available: Univers, Akzidenz Grotesk, Folio, etc. But Arial... Whatever you say, as far as I’m concerned, it will always be a cheap type commissioned by a big corporate in order to not pay the rights to use Helvetica. Someone said up there that Nicholas Robin is a much better type designer than Max Miedinger: if so, He would have the ethics to not make Arial the way it was done. I’m sure Vincent Connarre is a great guy too, but nevertheless He greatly contributed to the poorness of taste in the worldwide typographic environment with his freak creation Comic Sans.

Uh, whatever, peace and love :-)

dr

We could solve this one by doing a FontLab blend on 2 of the worst to make the ultimate horrible font:

Comic Sand

Alex: i agree with every criticism of Arial. It is far too ugly to be used in seriousness. Thank you for expressing exactly what is wrong with it! :)
Doesn’t Century Gothic suffer from the same problem of non-horizontal stroke endings and being a cheap rip-off of Avant Garde?
There must be a thread about “what are the best-designed/best used typefaces and nicest typography?” somewhere, i just need to find it...

it could be interesting to launch a thread “which typefaces, according to you, marked a turning point in type history”?

example: many people consider optima a turning point for it was the first flare humanistic sans serif to achieve a huge success, but for me, stellar was the true first one, 20 years before, even if it didnt meet any success at that time because of the kabel / futura wave.

is that a good idea? or is it boring?

(you can be honest, i’m very strong)

dr

Throw in Papyrus into the Sand/Comic mix...
Call it ’Beachhouse’

Although an entirey different type of —house also comes to mind.

All this bashing aside — Papyrus is rather clever. Look at the way these little notches hold up, even when the type is blown up to meters high. It’s a very wellmade font.

(And yes, I have used it — once, for a menu, a long time ago…)

. . .
Bert Vanderveen BNO

1. If comic sans was shite it would not be seen, remembered or mentioned here. You would forget it. But you can’t so, it rules. It’s used in Italy so much and if it were crap it would be forgot but you mention it and see it a lot.

2. my surname is Irish and it is the name of a Celtic god and it is not French. so Allez-vous faire foutre!

p.s. I dare you to make a font as used as much at comic sans! There are hundreds of fonts on a computer, but they still pick it. So make one they use more or mention it, I dare you.

\/

I hope it made you wealthy Vince, for all the abuse you suffer for it!

Isn’t it rather that Papyrus is usually poorly chosen rather than being a badly-designed font? I’m surprised nobody has mentioned American Uncial which seems to suffer from both these problems.
Black Chancery has never made sense to me.

Base02

Arial is the perfect web font for squishing massive amounts of legal copy into small spaces. I don’t care how badly it was designed, it keeps the legal department off my back, so thank you Arial designers. I salute you!

If comic sans was shite it would not be seen, remembered or mentioned here. You would forget it. But you can’t so, it rules.

Vince - I’m surprised that you are still trying to make the case that your typeface is popular due to its design. Comic Sans doesn’t deserve all the ribbing it gets, but the cold harsh truth is: if Comic Sans wasn’t bundled with Windows we wouldn’t be talking about it and I doubt anyone would be using it.

+1 for Vince.

Hah, Papyrus has been elevated to extreme hights, considering its use by BBC’s Newsnight:

. . .
Bert Vanderveen BNO

Wow...that may be the most inappropriate use of Papyrus, ever.

Does anybody else think that designers would be a lot better at picking fonts if design schools barred the use of any font that ships with a computer’s OS or Adobe Creative Suite? Then again, that might just lead all the people who use Futura for everything to start getting all of their fonts from DaFont.

if Comic Sans wasn’t bundled with Windows we wouldn’t be talking about it and I doubt anyone would be using it.

But just suppose, what would they be using instead?

There are lot many folks out there using Comic Sans for the programming too. May be cause happy code generally has fewer bugs ;-)

Speaking of terrible typefaces, when I got a G5 last year, I went through the Fonts folder and took out all that hideous stuff, type I’d never use and all the Chinese characters that for some reason I’m forced to always have there... Lo and behold, the computer would not start up. I had to have it repaired, and the technician wagged a finger at me and told me to leave the default font set alone. I learned my lesson.

Hey Vince, (if it’s actually you),

1. Comic Sans doesn’t rule. Comis Sans sucks. Big time. The real Vincent Connare knows enough about type to know that’s the truth. It is successful for 2 very basic reasons: it was, as mentionned above, bundled with Windows; and 95% of the computer users in the whole world have a total lack of good taste, not only computer or font related but in general. Good taste comes with education and some given skills or hunger for artistic / aesthetic self improvement, which most of the world is lacking, that’s a pity but that’s the truth. Most of these people are very nice, very sweet, totally harmless and inoffensive, my own sister prints her reports in Comic Sans. She also wears clothes which make my eyes bleed.

2. I know your surname is not french, I was making a joke, and you are pretty rude out there, you actually deserve your name. Next time you visit france or quebec, make sure to spell your celtic god name out loud, the result will make my revenge.

p.s. anyone who creates a type in a vague comic book style and gives it out with windows will blow your rates away and send you back to oblivion, my friend. check the faces at blambot.com: they are in the same spirit with comic sans, though 100 times better. If you had designed these ones, the whole world would feel better. you once said that comic sans was never designed to make it on windows and be spread that much, and you felt sorry for that. at that time, i liked you. now you are very proud to state that mister everyone is picking your font over the other ones, which makes your design awesome. I don’t hate you... no, I just have some pity.

But anyway, you are not him, right?, I mean, the real vince connare would not be that much rudely childish, right?

right?

no one has mentioned it yet, but.... Jokerman. (There! Our work here is done.)

-=®=-

>Comis Sans sucks. Big time.

David, perhaps you can point us to some of your work so we can critique it too.

Simon:

of course, even though these works are quite old now for i dont have time to update my web, you can go and take a look at www.davidrault.com. keep 2 things in mind though: i am not a typographer, so you wont find any typefaces there (so far), and my harsh comment on comic sans was also fueled by what vince told me in the previous post, which litterally means “go f*** yourself” in english. otherwise i’d be bad, but not that bad. but the hell with it, comic sans sucks, i can say it in any language if you want, if i can’t say what i think here, i can say it nowhere. try not to take it personally every time someone says something bad about microsoft related things.

this being said, feel free to criticize anything you see. too bad i can not post my latest and nicest jobs, for these are packaging jobs and as long as the customer didnt give it a go and the didnt hit the shelves, i cant put them online... i will try to put some, though, to actually get some critics. some of my stuff suck big time too, i know it, i’m not an artist, i have to please some stupid customers.

cheers
dr

David R:
You don’t get it, do you? This entire thread has been repeated over and over and over again for the past decade, whether here on Typophile or otherwise. Vince has been defending his tiny little font for years.

No wonder he’s got a little vitriol in him, because people constantly rag on his little typeface that just so happened to be in the right place at the right time.

This whole Comic Sans case, discussion and points of view of parties involved has some similarity with a scenario when a family finds out that some years ago their brother-in-law was an actor in a poor erotic movie which the distribution company unexpectedly made widespread available and which then became surprisingly popular with the mainstream audience...

I find it most interesting that the most vilified fonts fall into the categories of rip-offs, and “write-offs.” Enough about rip-offs, and inappropriate use aside, what make Mistral, Comic Sans, Sand and Papyrus so hateful, even to ones who like all fonts, is that we don’t like to them scaleable. It disturbs me to try and make a written font for more than a single size, so I’m guessing that it disturbs us when a single outline is used to represent what we expect to be a range of proportions and a variety of edge qualities. Digital outlines at their worst, bringing out the worst in typophiles, I’d say.

Cheers!

I have a theory about all this: Some typefaces are novice magnets.

To the average person, most fonts look more or less the same. But, if a typeface has a strong flavor, it calls attention to itself. It’s easy to recognize and makes people feel like they know something about fonts when they recognize it. And it looks “special” compared to normal (i.e., boring) fonts, so using it makes their documents look “special.”

To the experienced designer, such typefaces have too much flavor, call too much attention to themselves, not to mention the fact that often carry the baggage of being associated with amateur design.

Well said, Mark. That is definitely a factor. That and the name — the font menu is often the first a novice’s first introduction to a typeface, so the name leaves a big impression.

Mark, I agree, but I think that for some people it’s also force of habit. For a long time Arial and Times New Roman were the only decent fonts many people had on their desktop machines, so we just got used to them. Over time better fonts have been phased in, but nobody is telling people “stop using crap fonts and start using Palatino!” Maybe Simon could subtly trick people into using better fonts by getting Microsoft to push all those great new fonts as a selling point for Vista and Office 2007.

That and the name — the font menu is often the first a novice’s first introduction to a typeface, so the name leaves a big impression.

Even the letter it starts with. I would hypothesize that in the infinite parallel universes that have word processing programs with alphabetically arranged font menus, the first font with “flavor” in the list is always overused by novices and disdained by typophiles.

I like Simonson’s “novice magnets” theory, it was true for me (and still it is sometimes).
This thread is so long that I cannot see Super Duty anymore.

I think I will put some Novice Magnets on my refrigerator:-)

ChrisL

I just finished a project where the customer demands the proposal be submitted “in 12 point standard Times New Roman, double-spaced, with wide margins. The occasional use of Arial for highlighting is acceptable.”

I hate these things on so many levels it defies description. From brute force trauma, I hate Times New Roman and Arial.

About 10 years ago, T602 was still a very popular text editor in Czech Republic and Slovakia. You would love even Arial if you would see a myriad of business documents set in Avant Garde which was the default font in Windows version of that software (and the first in its list of fonts).

David, what you say about scalability may also apply to Arial.
It seems to be the details that people object to, which aren’t really apparent at text size.

Times, however, although a single master, is the most serviceable of “web” serif faces at larger sizes, as the sharp serifs do give it some measure of finesse.

You like it over Georgia? How can anyone like anything over Georgia for the web?

Don’t you find Georgia a bit clunky at headline size?
It’s OK if you want a robust effect, but really, Miller Display is the “big” version of this design.

I like the use of Comic Sans in the Windows version of “The Sims” ... fits the mood very well.

Recently I came across a site on Gutenberg in Comic sans. But will you all excuse me if I waffle on a bit about a typeface alluded to earlier in this discussion? Is that allowed?

On page 1 it was nice to see someone speak up for Excoffon’s masterpiece Mistral. Good for you Mr Small caps (or Ms small caps if you are a woman... personally I hate the ’politically correct’ Ms, but I’m not a woman...). Excoffon designed this type for the Olive foundry’s clients who were mostly small letterpress printers in France and francophone countries still setting type by hand. He certainly didn’t design Mistral for graphic designers (who were fairly thin on the ground in Europe in the fifties). In fact Mistral has always been a favouite of ’popular graphics’. Serious graphic designers wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole. Nevertheless, even us sophisticated designers should be able to appreciate that much type which dwells firmly within popular graphics is worthy of our appreciation (and perhaps devotion) even though we would never use it. Look at Novarese’s superb STOP. I have an archive of about a 150 photos of signs, logos and whatnot in STOP (not to mention Mistral). But let’s get back to Mistral again for a moment. John Dreyfus wrote a highly appreciative piece on Mistral in the Penrose annual of 1956. For many years it was the only face available that gave a convincing idea of quickly written spontaneous handwriting. Obviously Mistral no longer represents the handwriting of today but it is still the most popular of all the ’handwriting’ typefaces or, to use a more colourful expression, ’shopping list’ typefaces that have sprung up since the digital revolution: I mean faces that don’t show off a calligrapher’s handwriting, but are able to give an impression of decent handwriting of the sort we might do for a shopping list. But Mistral is far more than just a decent imitation of handwriting. In the game of bluff and deception that is implicit in all ’shopping list’ faces, Excoffon plays a masterful hand. Of course... designers might prefer real handwriting to fake handwriting but that’s another story.

The version of Mistral that was (or maybe still is) installed in Bill Gates’ systems is a real abomination and a horrid travesty of Excoffon’s work. ITC put out a light version of Mistral designed by Phil Grimshaw in 1997 (complete with small caps and stacks of ligs). This was another masterpiece and a very fitting tribute to Excoffon. But it seems to have been a commercial fiasco probably because popular graphics is — quite understandably — not interested in paying for fonts.

Small caps admires the colourful brochure for Mistral, and so do I. Excoffon himself designed other beautiful handouts for his faces. And this is another point worth emphasizing. Don’t you all think that it is time for an exhibition of typefounders advertisments? There’s much more to be said of Mistral (and of course of its designer too), but I’ll stop here to avoid an impulse to write a whole article.

I’ll finish up by returning to the original subject of this discussion ’The worst typefaces’. Someone mentioned ROTIS and I thoroughly agree. Why is ROTIS such an awful face? Because it is a hybrid. Upstairs it tries to be 19th century and downstairs it’s Renaissance. I can’t stand it.

Sorry for being so long winded and I apologise for having written too much about one of my favourites rather than the contrary.

James:

Spatium Magazine and the TYPOSITION. studio from Offenbach Germany organized an exhibition of type specimens from the last 100 years just earlier this year. It was shown at both German National Libraries—first in Frankfurt am Main, then in Leipzig—and was very beautiful.

Thanks Dan for this useful piece of information, although it is sad to be reminded of how badly informed I often seem to be. Presuming you have a copy of the catalogue, is there any e-mail or other kind of address I can contact for a copy?

There wasn’t a catalogue, I’m sorry to say. But the fifth issue of Spatium magazine (the issue is bi-lingual) is close – spatium #5

You can also enjoy these images on spatium’s blog –

Frankfurt
http://www.spatium-magazin.de/»scala-bembo-times-und-dolly«/782.php
http://www.spatium-magazin.de/»scala-bembo-times-und-dolly«-making-of-2-2/873.php
http://www.spatium-magazin.de/»scala-bembo-times-und-dolly«-making-of-3/886.php
http://www.spatium-magazin.de/»scala-bembo-times-und-dolly«-making-of-4-–-blinde-texte/894.php
http://www.spatium-magazin.de/»scala-bembo-times-und-dolly«-musterspaziergang/924.php
http://www.spatium-magazin.de/»scala-bembo-times-und-dolly«-musterspaziergang-impressionen/932.php

Leipzig
http://www.spatium-magazin.de/1079/1079.php
http://www.spatium-magazin.de/ausstellungseroffnung-»scala-bembo-times-und-dolly«-in-leipzig/1088.php
http://www.spatium-magazin.de/vortrag-»schriftmuster-–-einblicke-in-entstehung-wandel-und-asthetik«-am-25-oktober/1145.php

Regarding being informed, James, if you & the folks happen to organize something like that in Milan, please let me know, I’ll try to bring my students & I there, thanks very much.

p.s. Just saw the new sponsored font, I fell from the chair.

Caro Alessandro.

Nice to hear from you! Three weeks ago we had a Sunday morning ’BICICLETTERING’ in Milan. About thirty type and lettering maniacs on their bikes looking at Roman, medieval and Renaissance inscriptions, Cresci’s inscription on the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, plus 19th and 20th century inscriptions and shop signs. Next time I hope you’ll be with us.

Thanks, James, nice to hear from you, too.
That “Biciclettering” sounds socially terrific, I didn’t know about that at all.
Do you have any pictures posted ?

In the Serious Font category Gill Sans is pretty bad, with what I consider to be some major faux pas throughout.

But just recently I came across some of Neville Brody’s work that I’ve never seen before (lucky me!) I’m almost at a loss for words about how truly horrid I think Autotrace, Meta Subnormal, Dirty One and Dirty Four are, regardless of any deconstructivist motivation (?) behind their design.

To Satya,

Excuse me - how could you put BASE 02 on this list? It is a easy-to-read grunge face - that was extremely popular and most people never paid a cent to the creator for using it — including HOLLYWOOD.

And Gräfenberg, I am not a fan of Gill Sans, but as a former typesetter learned a long time ago that every font (yes even Comic Book Sans) has a place - and that somewhere there is a perfect job for it. I happened to have been given a business card recently, and it was a delight to see — and then I realized the face I was looking at was Gill Sans Italic. Perhaps since no one I know has used it since 1992 — it was just a pleasure to see.

Helveeta...the processed cheese-food of typefaces.;-)

Jackie, I wasn’t the one to bring up Gill Sans; just agreeing with a previous poster.

But let’s face it (groan, sorry for the pun) there are some pretty ugly glyphs in it - worst being the a - and its irregularity I find grating*.

I didn’t in any way mean to imply that it can’t look OK:
BBC logo
Penguin and Pelican covers
Monotype
Wikimedia Foundation logo

Lots of ‘ugly’ fonts can be used with skill. Doesn’t stop them from being ugly in themselves :-)

*Compare it to Granby for example, much more successful as a design overall IMHO.

Russell, you’ve got a typo in your link code: Should be “href” not “haref”.

... and I agree with your opinion about Waldorf fonts. I designed a special section of a magazine a few years ago about Rudolf Steiner. I had never heard of this style of font before and couldn’t believe people used them with a straight face. It would probably work for The Flintstones, though.

As long as this thread isn’t disappearing...

I had almost managed to forget about the Waldorf fonts until I was reminded by a thread on the Type ID Board.

(thanks Mark!)

Yes - They do use that stuff with a straight face.

-=®=-

Conduit! aaargh! It’s not funny, it’s not clever, it’s just u.g.l.y!
.........................................................
Bison Design
Spön

I am sorry to disagree with Mark, even a year later, but the Waldorf typeface would be great with a woodcut design. It is reminiscent of a Jugend cover or a magazine in that style from a century ago. Perhaps not with the outline version or the “quark” shadow, which are awful.