Buy: Font Snobs
I saw this picture on an image board I frequent and it reminded me of the culturally significant website that wants to ban Comic Sans. People are font snobs. I guess I’m a font snob too. I have to admit Comic Sans and Jokerman are both atrocious, but they have their (ironic?) place in the world.
One of the great things about the Ban Comic Sans website is that you get to see some of the best examples of Comic Sans in its natural environment. I imagine it’s a go to font for many in the over 40 crowd.
There are fonts to be celebrated authentically. Like the ubiquitous and oft overlooked fonts, Ariel and Times New Roman. There is that documentary all about MY personal favorite font, Helvetica. It’s full of German graphic designers who rank very high on the font snob hierarchy. I mean, who doesn’t like Helvitca. Helvetica Haters, that’s who. Or maybe people who are all about alternative fonts.
Did you ever make up your own font? I used to sit next to girls in Math class who were all about the bubble letters.
Jessica, courtesy of this site you have to visit.
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4 Comments, Comment or Ping
Ryan, you are not a font snob. If you paid attention to Helvetica, you would note that its not the best font to use in the world. The spacing is horrible and there are geometry problems with the block letters. They’ve come out with many fixes for it, such as Helvetica Neue, but even these don’t fix all the problems with it. It really only works when in bold or black, and usually lowercase. Helvetica the documentary merely wanted to celebrate the most used font for its 50th birthday.
Also Arial and Times New Roman are shit fonts. Arial was created by microsoft to be replacement for Helvetica on Windows computers because Mac already took Helvetica b/c Steve Jobs takes design more seriously. Times is also in that bed of fonts created for computer and internet use, rather than true design (as well as Verdana which was specifically made for pixel internet usage).
You should do some real research first before making a post because you liked a film celebrating one (sans-serif) font. Helvetica can be great, when used (read: kerned) correctly. But there are plenty of fonts that designers use more extensively then Helvetica…Checkout these two articles: http://www.cameronmoll.com/archives/001168.html http://justcreativedesign.com/2008/09/23/top-7-fonts-used-by-professionals-in-graphic-design-2/ about common fonts used by design professionals (these are two design professionals blogs, look up their work), then understand there are a ton more that aren’t on these lists. Look in the comment sections too.
As for handwritten fonts, use http://www.dafont.com to find a ton of amateur fonts, some of which can be real gems.
ps - I’m a font snob.
I prefer to enjoy the plurality of fonts out there. How else would font psychologists find detective work? Helvetica is for the robots and corporate machines, i.e. the unoriginal and the manipulative. And the perfectionists as well. Verdana for the amateur Helvetican trying to side-step the mainstream. I’d like to see some more professionalism in the world of font selection. I’m a font idealist.
Riddle: If form follows function, and each and every font is created for a purpose (that purpose being the subtleties in what it expresses), and the law states that the graphic designer’s font is protected if it can’t be separated from its specific purpose, then by what means can we share typefaces? I think I stated that correctly. Basically, graphic designers, like musicians, may be justified in getting upset about sharing. Maybe they’re snobs too.
Maybe I’m just a mainstream font snob.
I tend to go online and download stupid fonts that I never ever use cause they look cool.
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