Nick's mention of Zapf Chancery prompted me to delve into the fonts folder and check it out, and taking my lack of font-knowledge into consideration, see if my brain would associate it subconsciously with the classic florist's sign. With assistance from my production manager (who has a considerably greater Adobe Illustrator knowledge than myself), we managed to whip up a quick florist's sign, just to prove how right Nick was.
Uncanny isn't it?
How many people judge a corporation or company on their font? I'm willing to argue that it's a pretty small percentage, until that is, the company decides to change font after about 50 years, then it's the talk of the town...
IKEA, renowned for their modern and affordable housewares decided to make a change to their catalogue font. They decided that after five decades of using Futura, a change was needed and went ahead with the switchover to the popular but generic font, Verdana. With this change came an uproar from the designers and critics of the web, and within hours of the news, Twitter was afloat with thousands of people angrily commenting on the debacle. Apparently, IKEA's reason was to change to Verdana so that their web based text and their catalogue text matched, but in doing so, they lost a large chunk of their brand identity.
The truth is, choosing a font wisely for a company's brand is essential to how the brand will be perceived. Old and traditional businesses tend to use Times and Baskerville to say, "We're traditional, we do it by the book and we're reliable." whereas more modern companies who want a cleaner image generally prefer to use Futura and Gill variations. Apple are a great example! Apple use the hard hitting, clean cut Myriad semibold pro for their advertising and marketing campaigns. It's sleek, chic and simple but remains stylish, which is cleverly echoed in their line of products.
As for the title of this entry, it obviously refers to possibly the world's most hated font. So hated in fact that there is a website dedicated to campaigning for a ban on it. When Andy and Tom jokingly suggested that Andy use Comic Sans on a logo design on Twitter this week, I laughed along with them in the knowledge that it's still very much a joke within the design industry. How long before the world realises? Not long I hope. The below image provides all you need to know;
It's now obvious to me that ironically, Comic Sans has become a joke in itself.
Nick
P.S - Unfortunately, there was no option to publish this post in Comic Sans, I'm terribly sorry.
IKEA, renowned for their modern and affordable housewares decided to make a change to their catalogue font. They decided that after five decades of using Futura, a change was needed and went ahead with the switchover to the popular but generic font, Verdana. With this change came an uproar from the designers and critics of the web, and within hours of the news, Twitter was afloat with thousands of people angrily commenting on the debacle. Apparently, IKEA's reason was to change to Verdana so that their web based text and their catalogue text matched, but in doing so, they lost a large chunk of their brand identity.
The truth is, choosing a font wisely for a company's brand is essential to how the brand will be perceived. Old and traditional businesses tend to use Times and Baskerville to say, "We're traditional, we do it by the book and we're reliable." whereas more modern companies who want a cleaner image generally prefer to use Futura and Gill variations. Apple are a great example! Apple use the hard hitting, clean cut Myriad semibold pro for their advertising and marketing campaigns. It's sleek, chic and simple but remains stylish, which is cleverly echoed in their line of products.
As for the title of this entry, it obviously refers to possibly the world's most hated font. So hated in fact that there is a website dedicated to campaigning for a ban on it. When Andy and Tom jokingly suggested that Andy use Comic Sans on a logo design on Twitter this week, I laughed along with them in the knowledge that it's still very much a joke within the design industry. How long before the world realises? Not long I hope. The below image provides all you need to know;
It's now obvious to me that ironically, Comic Sans has become a joke in itself.Nick
P.S - Unfortunately, there was no option to publish this post in Comic Sans, I'm terribly sorry.
