Fonts that you love and hate: Typographical discussion.

[Duke]

That's from Chank, isn't it? I have it too...

I kind of like his work, but Chank Diesel wins my "Most Stupidest Fake Pretentious Name Award" hands down.

 

[Famine]

Verdana = Win
Comic Sans = Diarrhoea

 

[Azuremen]

No single font drives me crazy. Well, aside from the overly dramatic fonts that attempt to look extreme. Which I find people using on aim and msn at times. Which is why I have all incoming messages formatted to my local settings.

What kills me is when people use terrible colors, italics, bold, underline and etc to try to make a point. Because 98% of the time it just makes everything harder to read an annoying. My chemistry professor does this with his powerpoints. The result is a feeling akin to presentations done by middle schoolers - overly busy slides from 6 colors and several fonts trying to seperate parts that should just be bulleted.

I do understand some of the passion that people can have for fonts, having once been in a design program. My own personal prefrence leans towards sans serif fonts. They just tend to feel more stream lined.

 

[Mrs. Famine]

What kills me is when people use terrible colors and bold to try to make a point. Because 98% of the time it just makes everything harder to read an annoying.

Careful now...

 

[Azuremen]

Careful now...

I wasn't referring to Famine His color choice with the board's background works quite well on the eyes and likely results in less eye strain than the default black.

What I had in mind is when one does something along the lines of this...

HAI GUYS!!! luk at my cool font colrs n cnterd up lik this u no u lik it!!!​

 

[Omnis]

I was always annoyed by the teachers who typed up their notes/assignments in Comic Sans. It always came off as a shallow attempt to make it look like they genuinely cared about connecting with the students. Especially the ones who acted like they really wished they didn't want to be there any other time.

Oh yeah. And I hate when people use Comic Sans for comic captions and speech bubbles. Comic Sans is not Webletterer!

 

[Azuremen]

Doh, wrong thread I did post in.

Comic Sans is pretty over used and over played. And annoying. It should be destroyed.

 

[Casio]

You will never decode this. Never. I will never understand why wingdings is even a word-processing font. Unless, of course, someone at Microsoft had a terrible sense of humor.

Wingdings was very intended to be used a font for typing text in through. It was designed to give users access to symbols they could use in line with their text. Symbols such as arrows, pointers, basic icons, etc.

 

[Klostrophobic]

We use mistral at work. Ugh, it's so hideous.

Big Trebuchet MS fan here.

Trajan can go choke on a wristwatch. It's everywhere.

 

[benzoboy]

Why are we hurrying for annoying people?

You missed the point. Read it again.

F

 

[Blackbird.]

I actually “hate” very few fonts themselves – typeface designers are often very talented people and have thought carefully about their work. It’s almost always the misuse of fonts that I hate. However, it’s very very very easy for me to choose my #1 most-hated font of all time ever forever ever:
[sniprant][/sniprant]

*blank stare*...


...

 

[Moglet]

Papyrus. And, obviously, Times New Roman, Impact and Comic Sans MS.



That does annoy me. It seems like every trying-to-be-EXTREME-but-not-so-much company is using that to seem cool these days. Whatever happened to originality, people?


(Yeah, I'm a big font nerd...)

Hehe, I used to be a big font nerd, my tutor at university was really high up in the I.S.T.D. so he was obsessed with teaching us all about everything about typography!

 

[buickgnx88]

You missed the point. Read it again.

F

Actually you missed it, you spelled hooray wrong.

 

[BayConRong]

I generally don't really care what people use as a font but i do hate it when people use colors on a colored page. My Eng prof uses yellow and blue on a purple paper and then red on orange papers.

Then I hate it when people use those caligraphy fonts.

 

[benzoboy]

Actually you missed it, you spelled hooray wrong.

No, no I didn't.

I refuse to argue about the spelling of "Hurray" with someone I will never meet over the internet.

 

[Greycap]

Verdana = Win
Comic Sans = Diarrhoea

I don't think I can agree any more. Verdana should see more use than it does and Comic Sans should see... well, maybe the firing squad.

 

[Pupik]

Verdana is a great font for computer monitors, but not so much for print, in my opinion. It was designed for the purpose of superior readability on a screen. I think it's too "bold" in larger point sizes, but achieves all-round goodness for many small sizes.

 

[Sage]

Yup – the x-height is much much too tall for use on anything other than low-resolution media (e.g., computer monitors), and only at small sizes. I really hate websites that use 24+ px Verdana headlines – you see all the nastiness inherent in Verdana in order to make it look decent at small sizes.

 

[EA11R]

The latter two posts were the first to which I could truly relate within the entire thread.

*scuttles off to research fonts*

EDIT: Though I do habitually mistrust anything written in Comic Sans, though I don't know it by name.

Okay, Bahaus 93 and Magneto + pure, unadulterated win fail win

I'm actually a little sad they're not here right now.

 

[Stevisiov]

Bahaus 93 is a shining example of a cool font, of course it only looks good when its BIG.

 

[Pupik]

Bauhaus 93 is a classic; I suppose the 93 means its extra bold.

It works perfectly on a site like Homestarrunner.com, where it references a distant past that's ambiguously distant.

 

[Danny]

I absolutely love comic sans. People protesting against a font really need to jam a crowbar through their skull. Sideways.

 

[Pupik]

Comic Sans wouldn't be so bad if it was only used for a single word here or there. But it also:

• Has no rhyme or reason to it's design, x-heights are variable, points do not connect consistently from letter to letter.

• The thickness of all parts of the type were not are constant, which means it should actually resemble handwriting.

• It's hard to read in small sizes. It doesn't change shape well, because it's so lopsided.

• Terrible kerning; the spacing between letters never looks right.

• It's overused: In too many places to resemble a kid's writing; but it's also used for too many other purposes and paragraphs of text.

 

[niky]

Comic Sans is one of the worst fonts... ever... I've never used it... as a graphic designer, you look at the font and it just screams... bland.

The easiest way to describe it to the non-typographically inclined is... well... you know that little ditty that your music teacher in high school wrote and forced your class to sing at graduation? The verses were clunky, the music was formulaic, you could predict the end of the next line because she would always rhyme "why" with "goodbye"... and only two years later you've forgotten the melody completely? That's Comic Sans. completely uninspired and designed without any love or talent. Which, ironically, is probably why it appeals to so many people... just like... hmmm... Hannah Montana?

 

[Metar]

Arial.

...lots of good points...

The fact that it’s ubiquitous only makes it worse.

And to think I actually have to argue with my teachers that "12pt. Arial 1.5 spaced" is not a neat paper. Arial is a paper, at best, for headers - and as you said, it's a ripoff of a better font - and I can't stand the fact that everyone uses it everywhere on everything. It's not a pretty font!


I don't see anything wrong with Times, though. On a papers and letters, it looks solid, serious and easy to read. Times New Roman, or similar fonts, are pretty much standard on books and papers - for a reason, in my opinion.

 

[stumpydino]

comic sans is a big flag saying AMATEUR, its a clear indication of no design interest or aesthetic ability
Helvetica is for the win, and univers too. i do like thick sans serif ones with removed counters, most used by non-format are awesome, and ultra light type too!
im also liking century schoolbook recently, gill sans is pretty nice
curlz, theres another ghastly one

 

[Wolfe]

it's a ripoff of a better font...It's not a pretty font!

Not to single you out -- because many typographers share your opinion, it seems -- but how can a ripoff of a good font not be a good font on its own? Okay, Microsoft ripped off Helvetica, and Arial is lame because of that. I get it. But Arial being an ugly, useless font because MS made tiny tweaks to some of the letters, most noticably on only one -- the capital "R?" Where's the logic?

neema_t said Helvetica and Arial are like a Ferrari 355 and an MR2 with a bodykit (presumably made to look like the 355), respectively. As a car enthusiast with little to zero interest in the study of typography, I'm going to have to borrow that analogy.

In my opinion, if Helvetica were a 355, Arial would be a handbuilt 355 replica that is almost completely indistinguishable from the real thing, its only flaws being slight variations in body curvature and somewhat goofy "Rs" on the Ferrari logos. There are certainly instances where a real Ferrari, or Helvetica, are preferable over a fake kitcar or ubiquitous font knockoff -- a track day, professional design work -- and if it's available, there are few reasons to not use the genuine article. However, in an everyday instance where the choice of car/font is beyond your control -- borrowing a friend's Ferrari knockoff to commute to work because your car is in the shop, or posting on a forum that uses Arial, or taking a class that requires Arial for papers -- what's the big deal?

 

[niky]

I dunno. Arial isn't one of my favorite fonts, but I don't hate it. I actually use Arial Narrow for my papers. Simple, economical (in terms of paper), easy to read, and not-so-common.

Maybe the analogy would be Ferrari 355 and Toyota MR2... period? Just because it takes its cues from a more classy car, doesn't mean a stock Toyota MR2 (turbo, please) isn't a good one in its own right.

Or maybe that should be Ford GT40 and Ford GT43?

 

[YSSMAN]

I guess I never get that in-depth when choosing a font for that many things. Comic sans looks cheesy, so I tend to stay away from it. I normally prefer the more industrial, "square" lettering, but I'm never bothered all that much by the standard Arial or Time New Roman.

I think what bothers me is the requirements that my professors place on papers. I understand that standardizing some fonts makes for a uniform way of judging the length of papers, but nevertheless, I'm bothered by the lack of creativity that is given by just Times New Roman, 12pt, Double Space. It just never looks all that "good" when submitting something...

 

[Casio]

I find the Blue Highway series really nice. Use it a bit in my design work.