Bad fonts are all around us, like the air we breathe, the sun in the sky and the supposed imminent threat of terrorism. You can't walk into a restaurant without seeing an advert in Scriptina or even Comic Sans (perish the thought). But where has this carefree nature come from? What has happened to the brilliant typography from the 50s, 60s and 70s? Allow me to offer my thoughts on the matter.
1. Familiarity breed contempt
Businesses are suffering from the returning Hooded Claw that is another recession which means special offers and pretty much anything to drum up interest. What would you do to draw attention to your shop window? Stick a poster up. But instead of making it clear and coherent for prospective customers to feel like they might actually want to eat their dinner there, they decide it's perfectly acceptable to splash every possible free font onto the same page. Who told them this was okay? Word Art in 2011, with rainbow colours and wave writing?
That should have died out like Minidisc players and So Solid Crew but evidently not. Comic Sans makes it home in the office with messages about office parties, friendly notices to put stationary back and other such messages, none of which need to be written in that dreadful font as this person clearly understands:
This sentiment is also backed by the Ban Comic Sans website with their tagline "Putting the sans in Comic Sans". Other hated fonts include Papyrus, Bradley Hand, Curlz and Vivaldi, most of which are attempts at calligraphy. I don't care how fancy your writing is, if I can't read it and it looks bad, consider my interest gone. I suppose the main reason why these fonts are used for the general public is because they are so accessible to people.
They were our typographical stalwarts when we were at school (or for me at least). You just need to load up Microsoft Word and they're there, intently waiting for use like puppies at a dog's home. Maybe they should be more like toys in a grabber machine. After a twenty goes and £4 lost without a font, you'd soon think twice about using Papyrus for your latest design.
2. Good design costs too much money
That might not necessarily be true but it's what some companies must think, else they'd pay for good design. The philosophy is: why pay for a service you can do yourself for free? Get the intern to fire up Publisher and throw together an advert. They'll be happy they're not making tea and it'll save endless meetings and alteration meetings. Sorted. Except the poor quality shows. They might not even have an intern and it's rushed through by the resident jack-of-all-trades. The point is, good design will cost money. Most good services do. Which leads into the third point
3. Fonts cost too much money
It's been a major stumbling block for me whenever I've ever been designing. You see a lovely font, go to download and it's... £300 for the whole family. Nightmare. You look for a similar alternative but they're just not the same, like that ex girlfriend you can't seem to get over. You begin to think that they're overpriced and consider the dreaded black market route of illegal downloading (which I do not endorse). It's thoughts like that that have struggling designers wake up in cold sweats in the middle of the night.
But are they really too much money? I suppose it depends on the quality. After all, someone has taken hours to perfectly construct each letter and sometimes extra glyphs for just one font alone, not to mention the different weights. It's only fair that you should pay for it; this is their livelihood we're talking about. Equally, they wake up in cold sweats if they think nobody will buy their fonts (maybe). With this in mind, if you can't afford it, your usual next resort is free font websites such as Dafont.com, where you may find decent alternatives, but which also harbour Frankenstein-esque monstrosities.
4. Clients love the fonts you hate
Ah, the good old client. Many a fly in a designer's ointment. No matter how many times you tell them "this font or colour will look better", they kindly remind you who's paying you and why their font is better. The Catch-22 scales end up tipping in their favour once money is mentioned. Well, I'll tell you this: if you can get the chance, take the risk and tell them why their font is rubbish and try to back it up with consumer opinions. After all, that's what clients love to hear, what the people say.
Common reasons for the use of Comic Sans include: the "informal/human" feel, it's more fun or it's "different" (ie. it's not Times New Roman or Arial, which are equally as bad). It's a very hard line to toe between pleasing your client and your ego/integrity but trust in the fonts and thou shalt reap the benefits threefold.
