Hating Papyrus Does Not Make You Cool Friday, Jun 19 2009
personal 9:12 am
There seems to be this trend among non-typset geeks who nevertheless want to sound like a typeset geek to arbitrarily hate on some of the more popularly-hated fonts. With some fonts, where the proper application is reasonably uncommon, this is more or less justifiable. I know that Comic Sans is out of place in almost every context, and I know I received one too many handouts in high school written in it. But there’s one I haven’t quite been able to understand: Papyrus. It is not, taken in isolation, a particularly ugly font. There are, naturally, websites collecting its use, and I can even agree that in a good number of examples they could have found a better font. But I’m really of no mind to start hating the font merely because it captures the mind of unimaginative restaurant owners. (Related: I know a comic that uses Comic Sans in its word bubbles. It works just fine.)
The most interesting part of this, for me, is the reaction when Randall Munroe wrote a comic about it. A number of xkcd fanboys were quick to declare their hatred for the font, as well. They were, that is, until someone pointed out that the movie Serenity uses it in its logo. Turns out, most of them couldn’t even identify the font when used relatively appropriately in a logo. Hmm.
Some of the more design-oriented types who complain about it seem to believe they know exactly what the individual is thinking when they select Papyrus as a font. They seem to believe that there is a conscious design decision here, that non-designers put a great deal of forethought into arbitrary selections of fonts. They assume they must weigh all of the options they have available to them. “What does this font say about me/my store/my event?” the design geeks think they are asking.
Here’s what actually happens. The thought process runs roughly like this: “Oh, I need a font. Let’s see what’s available. Oh, Papyrus sounds interesting. Hey, that doesn’t look bad, let’s go with that.”
I’m fine with disliking fonts. The seething disdain, the disproportionate hatred, however, I’m really not cool with. Do try to keep it in perspective.
June 19th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Indeed. I may think Times New Roman is soulless, but that won’t stop me from considering it when I need a soulless font that is serifed and dense.
Comic Sans is great when it’s in bold and italic. Then it looks like I think it was meant to look.
(I kind of like Papyrus. It is fun to spot it in the wild.)
June 19th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
I actually kind of like soulless fonts. I generally use a Courier variant rather than Times New Roman, due to a love for fixed-width, but it definitely does exactly what I need it to do: carry text.
Comic Sans looks pretty good when it’s used in word bubbles for comics (see: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0663.html).
I also sort of like Papyrus, but it is best when used for logos, headers, &c, and shouldn’t be used for blocks of text.
In my halfassed google research for this post, I found someone who had rejected an art director’s resume without considering because it used Papyrus for subheaders. That kind of pissed me off.
June 19th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
++This post.
July 4th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
You had to know I’d comment on this, eh?
I found someone who had rejected an art director’s resume without considering because it used Papyrus for subheaders.
I would too. Your job as an art director is to fight tooth and nail for your projects’ uniqueness in a sea of visual media flooded with sameness (sameness in the form of, say, Papyrus). When you market yourself and your skill-set with a typeface that 1) came with your operating system, 2) is used by millions of other people and projects, 3) is a highly recognizable display face instead of a typeface that exercises subtlety, you aren’t worth crap as an art director. Papyrus in this context demonstrates that the candidate in question either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about existing stylistic trends, that the candidate is too lazy to look for a font that does the same thing as Papyrus without BEING Papyrus, and/or the candidate does not know how to create a unique aesthetic message. I wouldn’t hire their ass either.
Laypeople can’t be expected to care about Comic Sans or Papyrus beyond “it looks cool”. But when you’re an art director, and it is your job to understand the form and function of good typography — and to lead your design team in their designs as well — making bad type choices is inexcusable.
As for fanboys h8ing papyrus but failing to recognize it in the Serenity logo, that’s fairly retarded.
I have to admit a piece of me died when I saw they’d chosen that font for my beloved Serenity… FFS, it’s not the only “unique looking” typeface in the world. You’re a design firm, Serenity Logo Designers, how about getting off your ass and actually designing something instead of copying whatever’s easy.
July 4th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
See, I’d assume it was a deliberate decision and that for whatever reason this person wanted to draw attention to his use of it. You really can’t tell how talented someone is based solely on their use of a typeface. Perhaps he was making a point about proper versus improper usage.