{"id":42002,"date":"2024-02-05T14:33:52","date_gmt":"2024-02-05T19:33:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=42002"},"modified":"2024-02-05T14:33:52","modified_gmt":"2024-02-05T19:33:52","slug":"the-origin-of-comic-sans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/02\/05\/the-origin-of-comic-sans\/","title":{"rendered":"The Origin of Comic Sans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thomas Steeles<\/a> (via Jason Kottke<\/a>):<\/p>\n

[Most] people know of the font. By that notion, Vincent Connare, the creator of Comic Sans, has exclaimed that “I made the best font in the world.<\/a>” Whether you believe that or not, it doesn’t exclude the fact it was, at one point, the second most complained about thing on Twitter<\/a> and has a whole website dedicated to its banishment.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

It’s understandable to see why Connare chose comics as his main source of inspiration; there’s a clear parallel to make between the speech bubbles used in comics and the speech bubbles that Rover uses. Additionally, the accessible, child-friendly atmosphere that Microsoft Bob wanted to achieve could be seen in the design of comic books – with the less-rigid hand drawn sans serif type, and bright colours.<\/p>

Connare, in around three days, created Comic Sans; however, the curvy, soft-edged font that we all know wasn’t the intended final form of the font. Comic Sans was meant for screen-use only, and due to the technical limitations in the mid 90s, Windows didn’t have anti-aliasing technology, which meant fonts were pixelated – as a result most fonts looked jagged and sharp<\/a>. Knowing this, Connare specifically designed Comic Sans with aliasing in mind, so actually Comic Sans was only intended to be seen like what is shown in Figure 1.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n