If you talk about communication, you can not avoid Paul Elliman.

Paul Elliman is born in 1961 in the UK. He is a London based artist and designer, with works primarily focusing on communication and different ways of communication through language, sound and typefaces.

He is dealing with new looks and ways to use the written language. He has made a human alphabet, with people acting letters in a photo booth machine.

The original poster as Paul Elliman made it.

His work often involves collections of things. The largest project is his own font, “Found Font”, which is based on things from his everyday live. It is an ongoing project that already has been going for over 23 years.

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23 /09 /2012

The visual identity of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam is undergoing a radical reconsideration by Mevis & Van Deursen. Internationally renowned as one of the most inventive and acclaimed design agencies in the Netherlands, the duo had previously created the graphic identity of the museum’s Temporary Stedelijk program from 2010 to 2012. The museum’s visual re-branding will be an ongoing process, to be seen in a new logo, website design, publications, newsletter, stationery and posters, among other applications. In anticipation of the reopening of the Stedelijk Museum on September 23, the new campaign will be gradually unveiled. Wondering what typeface was used is not that crazy. It is a new ‘font’ designed by Radim Pesko called ‘Union’. A blending between ‘Helvetica’ and ‘Arial’

„Bifur: caractère de publicité” by A.M. Cassandre, Paris 1929

I found this book most interesting at the collection exibit I saw at the University of Amsterdam. A.M. Cassandre, whose real name was Adolphe Jean-Marie Mouron, was an Ukrainian- french graphic designer from the Interbellum period. He was designing posters and letter types.
Bifur was poduced by Deberny & Peignot from Cassandre’s designs. The book is a publication of this font released in 1929.

I chose this book cause i was impressed by a font itself and also the form of the book- how it was printed. I really like the simplicity and a specific character of it. The font was originally produced in 1- and 2-color versions. The one presented in the book is a 1-color version. I think visually it is very appealing and it was quite innovative for its time. The simplicity of the geometrical form, clarity of the message, funcionality create a beautifully balanced font. For me particularly attractive is the fact that some of the letters could be read as images and some of them as the letters with a small decorative element which anyway stays really simple. For example the lines in the letter „L” create the letter but in „M” they just create space around it. That makes me look at it, also the illustration in the book and not something that creates a readable image.
I also like the way how it is presented in the book. I think the combination of this elegant form of the font and the yellow colour create an absorbing, unique image.

Personally i also like the posters of A.M. Cassandre and i think the font in his works is very well combined with the images and shows how important this connection is.

post by Hania Sobolewska

Continuing lines, black and white, thick and thin, contrast.

Coming to you, back and forth, constant movement.

Soft and clear shape.

Bonding speed, sometimes slow and wide sometimes fast and light.

Going, growing.

E-ego- electricity- embrace- Emil- east- english -Ethiopia, jazz, eager- elegant, only, love, lonely, – evol- eternity.

Letter, body, language, a story, in between the line.

Continuing.

De Stijl versus Wendingen

Wendingen magazine 1929 #3 on Diego Rivera. Cover by Victor Huszar

The magazines de Stijl and Wendingen were both founded around 1918. De Stijl was connected to the artistic movement of De Stijl and Wendingen was connected to the Amsterdamse school. These two movements are completely different, if not opposite to each other (De Stijl being functional and minimal, only using the primary colors and black white and grey, and the Amsterdamse School playing with different colored bricks and all these ornaments). Logically these two magazines felt like competitors when they started to publish.

Wendingen magazine 1921 #4 on Frank Lloyd Wright and Berlage. Cover by El Lissitzky

That’s why I was completely confused when I saw a cover of Wendingen depicting a work of El Lissitzky, a constructivist artist and what I’ve always been told is that constructivism was kind of close to the Stijl. This issue was about: Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture!!! I always thought that he was the one heavily influencing the Stijl. What turned out to be the case was that the Dutch back in those days weren’t really making ‘groups’. They stayed individuals and were inspired by different sources and that’s why, how different the movements may be, also individuals brought characteristics of the Stijl into the Amsterdamse school and the other way around.
Isn’t that just great: they were existing movements but there seems to be no rules or boundaries in taking aspects of other movement, you are free to be inspired by everything.

[by Liza Prins]

SMELL it, LICK it, SUCK it, BITE it, CHEW it, EAT it.

4 years ago I went on a study trip to a curtain great house, build by a curtain great architect, that I do not remember. And just before I went in, my previous teacher at Architecture and Design, Aalborg (Denmark), told me and the rest of my class, that we would get goosebumps, when we first got inside this building. He was in love. Than I went in – but no goosebumps. I apparently did not feel a thing.
Only now I understand, what he was taking about – but in another context.
Today I was placed in front of these amazing art magazines from the 1920s named “Wendingen”. I really felt it.
I tried to smell it.
I was just about to lick it.
I would love to suck it!
I wonder how it would be to chew it.
I really wanted to eat it.

[by Kristine Andersen]

Inside and Outside the Amsterdam Ring

>As the capitol of the Netherlands Amsterdam is a popular place for new businesses and companies. Still you see that a lot of these companies place there new architectural masterpieces outside of the ring. Is this because of the high ground prices inside the ring?

> On a trip trough Amsterdam we quickly discover that the historical buildings of the city are not only in the center-canal areas. Around these canals you see a band, almost like a protecting layer, made of architecture that is maybe even historical as its center. The buildings and blocks give you an unique look on the wide collection of the Amsterdam School architecture. This is something that a lot of tourists miss when they come to the city: icons like ‘het schip’ in the Spaardammerbuurt, mercatorplein, the Berlage Lyceum and the many blocks and bridges through the city. Maybe this is a good thing; in this way it stays as an unique treasure that functions as a decor for the the daily life of many. Lets hope this architecture will be protected in the future and won’t be replaced by transient cheap Almere buildings that will be replaced every twenty years.

[by Taro Lennaerts]

B-Group goes “Wendingen”

[click left for English / click right for Dutch]

[by Henk Groenendijk]

A call from the past

In some places the atmosphere doesn’t seem to change with time. Regardless of new interior pieces, integrated technological devices or relatively fresh layers of paint on the walls, you just come in there and dive into the setting of decades ago.

That happened to me when I stepped into the hallway of a former post office, which is now turned into the museum called ‘t Schip. Blue shiny tiles on the walls and floor, wooden benches, iron bars around and the coolness of the air immediately placed me into the first half of the previous century, when the work there was humming: post office workers were stamping, sorting or preparing for dispatch numerous letters and parcels, customers were writing addresses on envelopes, buying stamps and waiting for the telephonist to scream out loud their name and the number of the telephone booth where they could pick up the phone and hear the voices of their far away families or friends.

The booths are still there. With exactly the same heavy door, yellow tiles on the walls and little table. And even though the place of the telephone was taken by the modern computer you still get a feeling that if you come in you can hear those voices. The voices of the past.[x]

photo by Gordon Parks

[by Anastasia Starostenko]

A wrestling match

If de Amsterdamse School and de Stijl were to fight each other in a wrestling match de Stijl would totally kick de Amsterdamse School’s ass. De Amsterdamse School would be wasting time executing these beautifully choreographed moves while de Stijl would engage in some straight on pounding with it’s massive angular fists and totally destroy de Amsterdamse School’s ass. Then de Amsterdamse School would attempt to retaliate by trying to impress de Stijl through jumping around like a ballerina but like a true wrestler de Stijl would bellow out “None of this fairy Efteling crap!” And pound de Amsterdam School straight into the floor, leaving only some bricks in a beautiful brownish/red color and a perfectly square hole in the ground.

Doctors wouldn’t be able to restore de Amsterdamse School to his old self since the resources are no longer around. De Stijl however, would collapse some days after the match as it would turn out his sturdy build was way overestimated and so the next week’s competition would be between a Bijlmer “Honinggraad Flat” and a temporary complex of sea containers.

[by Sanne Hartland]

Typotecture

Wendingen Dudok-issue cover design by Wijdeveld • Hilversum Cityhall by Dudok
dive into the exiting world of Typotecture [x]

[by Casper Braat]

Architectura et Amicitia

The ‘Amsterdamse School’ is a interesting architectural-style and is partly als known by it’s social-aware approach. The style belongs to a neo-style and contains architects such as: van der Mey, de Klerk [known by his work ‘the ship’], Kramer, and others.

I think it’s interesting that the ‘Amsterdamse School’ does not only stand for architectural knowable realizations, but that there’s also a whole movement for furniture [tables, chairs, clocks, lamps, textile etc], and even the idea of a ‘typical type font’, > Amsterdamse School is everywhere.

Wendingen was a interesting magazine [launched by the group, Architectura et Amicitia, of architects, artists etc] and was mainly focused on the ‘Amsterdamse School’.

I see this style as organic and yet non-organic, same as that it looks formal and family-aware. It is all and non, and that strikes me the most.

[by Petros Orfanos]

My Little Time Machine

Being born and raised in Amsterdam and going around this city for 23 years I can still every now and then catch this utopian feeling by walking past the frozen canals in the winter or taking the ferry to the north part of the city by sunset, but I sometimes wonder what it must feel like being a tourist in my own city discovering new places and seeing things you have never seen before. The 5 minutes I spend inside the Scheepvaarthuis was the first time in a while that I felt this way. For this very short period, for just these 5 minutes I was a tourist, a tourist who stepped in a Time machine and was able to see inside a little part of her city from almost a hundred years ago.

[by Giulia Shah]

pelican + crystal + ship = Amsterdamse school

What made the Amsterdamse school style buildings so colourful was the rich use of symbols. Perhaps the easiest thing to notice was the inspiration from the nature in the structure of the buildings: flowing round forms (like a shell) or geometric forms (like a crystal). This gives the buildings a feeling of a living organism.

Then there are also sculptures full of symbolism. Sometimes they are telling the story about the building, like it’s function or it’s history. For example the Scheepvaarthuis is built in a triangular shape so that it looks a like a huge ship and there’s a lot of Indonesian style statues and sculptures to tell about the Dutch colony.

The funniest thing I saw were the pelicans in Spaandammerbuurt. One of the explanations that I found for a pelican as a symbol was that it is a sign for charity after a legend that the pelican pecks her own breast to feed her starving chicks with her own blood. Well, is this maybe something for social housing then?

– From nature to architecture and from architecture to printed matter –

[by Katje Hannula]

Een historische wandeling in een moderne stad

De excursie was een belevenis op zichzelf. De eerste keer dat ik zolang heb gefietst in Nederland en tegelijkertijd zoveel moest onthouden. Je leeft in het heden maar wordt omringd door het verleden. Gebouwen uit de negentiende eeuw of veel verder met hedendaagse bouwstijlen in hun glorie. Een vermoeiend uitstapje met interessante gebouwen zoals de Gerrit Rietveld academie die in de stijl van het modernisme is gebouwd met veel staal en glas. Het gebouw is een transparante doos terwijl je aan de achterzijde ervan massieve gebouwen ziet. De straatnamen die flitsen voorbij tijdens het rijden sommige heel duidelijke leesbaar o.a. Oost zaanstraat, Hembrug straat, Spaardammer plantsoen. Ik kan ook zien hoe de architecten mee gaan met de tijd: combinatie van oude bakstenen, glas, marmer, hout, enzovoort. Mijn hersenen proberen de tijd en de ruimte te bestuderen hoewel niet alles tot me doordringt. De hoeveelheid aan informatie is niet te verwerken. Ik wilde nog meer weten over het soort typografie, dat gebruikt werd voor de nummers van de gebouwen. De tijdschriften wendingen zijn heel uniek en hebben een heel diepe indruk achter gelaten. Ik zag ook hoe de verschillende architecten de stad tot eenheid wilde creëren ondanks de moderne gebouwen tussen de oude. Men wilde geen afbreuk doen aan de historie van de stad Het Olympische gedeelte dat alleen zichtbaar was voor me toen Henk erover vertelde. Door dit alles besef ik dat de exterieur van een stad ook aantrekkelijk wordt als je meer erover te weten komt.

[by Annemarie Daniël]

archi*-talent or archi-braveness

It really makes me wonder how is it possible that architecture differs so much every time you go somewhere . It happened to me in Amsterdam in even more intense way.
Amsterdam’s architecture for me personally is in a cartoonish style or like someone wanted to created imaginary world called “ let’s fit in here”.
I feel like there were not strict guidelines for building . People seemed to enjoy planning the city. No restrictions and open mind are definitely the keys of the

whole charm of the city.
Compare to Poland ( it was a communistic country for some time), our architecture is packed with straight lines and forms and it visibly dominates in large cities. It has a bit of sadness and harshness in a way you approach it and how you feel about it. Amsterdam posses flow of energy that comes and goes . It is a great piece of art in itself and even it is already artistic and feminine it wants to be even more chic by putting f.ex. typography on buildings, graphical images on pathways or even decorating the edges of the houses. It is all to make people’s lives here better to let the energy be felt by people living in here.

Another aspect that attracted my attention a lot is the way buildings from different styles are put together, next to each other. Are they any aesthetic limitations? Is it the way people make art – experimenting in a way, showing the contrast, behaving mad or just enjoying the weirdness of those different styles? Does it has to be clear why something stands next to other object? In my opinion and the best explanation that works for me is simply to intrigue people’s imagination, to let them feel special. What is more this way of building may not fit established rules but by not feeling “ as it should be “ it gives the reason for existence the city needs to posses. To inspire people , to disturb and to let you discover it. This is the purpose an architecture should serve to really strike your mind, excite you and wake up when you, still sleepy, go out to face the world. Just like an art.

* archi – trouble of endless movement of investigation

[by Agnieszka Zimolag]

Glass Windows

Mercatoplein is one of the Amsterdamse school constructions which developed through out and after the First World War as an architectural movement. Mercatoplein is influenced greatly influenced by Frank LLoyd Wright’s le Corbusier that was a project developing 5 years before the square was completed and is a good example of how a suburban space can be turned into a socio economical center where people gather and shop or eat.
What intrigued me most in the square was the design the of windows, because contrary to their small shape,their frequency of their repetitive pattern reminded me of simplified church stained glass windows.
Patterns were indeed found in the window design of Het Schip by Michel Klerk as the top windows of the backside opened in a shape of semi spiral form could convey to the Fibonacci theory.
Sources: studiokoning, Amsterdamse_School [Wikipedia]

[by Claire Bamplekou]

My first discoveries
One of the first impressions I got of the Typographic Matchmaking, was an image of a huge three-dimensional shape with letters that I did not manage to read. However, I could sense meanings and my curiosity grew to decrypt this ‘unknown language’. The shape proved to be a mixture of both Latin and Arabic words, translating each other and forming a common text. As a matter of fact, it was a construction of the type font StoryLine, and one of the outcomes of the Typographic Matchmaking 2.0:

khtt.net
Naturally, I had discovered The Khatt Foundation – Center for Arabic Typography. Founded by Huda Smijtshuizen AbiFarès in 2004, this online platform offers a space for projects which develop Arabic typography and design, and deal with its relation to the Western society.

The project
The first initiative to the Typographic Matchmaking took place in 2005-07, the second in 2008-10. There is a lot to say about the project. The Typographic Matchmaking 1.0 deals with the typographic needs of contemporary design in the Arab world, specifically for publications and new-media. The Typographic Matchmaking 2.0 / in the City stretches the research into the urban space. Here, the focus is to bring the marriage between Arabic and Latin writing cultures to the three-dimensional city.

Huda Smijtshuizen AbiFarès introduces 15 professionals from Europe and the Middle East to collaborate in 5 teams. Each team consists of one Arab and one Dutch type/graphic designer and one architect or industrial designer. Each team also deals with a different subject. It is inspiring to me that they immediately move away from the original classical type and experiment with both language types, starting from scratch. The participants then visit respectively each other’s countries, and the cities of Amsterdam, Beirut and Dubai.

Backgrounds
I find it interesting to mention, that one of the reasons argued for the Typographic Matchmaking is, that because of the poor matches between the Arabic and Latin fonts, most bilingual design projects in the Middle East start in English before getting translated. Too often, the street sign you meet in the Middle East are written in a way that forces the Arabic language to adjust to the Latin language. The basic idea is thus to create new fonts that work both in Latin and Arabic, and especially to find types that create harmony between the different language structures. The aim of the project in the City, is also to bring back the sense of belonging to fast growing multicultural cities in the Arabic environment. One of the big challenges here, is how to deal with a visually already overcharged space. New alternative spaces within the contemporary, shopping dependent, urban structure may engage inhabitants on many levels and create a more emotional relationship with the direct environment and the larger world.
Another important reason is the demand for Arabic identity in the West. I could very well imagine that even people who do not speak Arabic, can connect to their roots through the presence of Arabic script.

Nuqat-folly, with poetry on its walls in the type font Nuqat:

Yielding outcomes
The Typographic Matchmaking is a merging of two cultures, where both adaptation and play are central. I was curious to see how two totally different kinds of languages can translate each other and at the same time meet each other’s ‘needs’.

The font named Nuqat is developed with a grid. The text is created out of dots in both language structures. The system of the grid has here the capacity of making a text where the letters are – or disconnected, or linked to each other. I find this font interesting for its apparent multiple possibilities. I also like to see how it could suit in different public spaces.

Here is a link to see some examples of the Nuqat used in several ways:

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inspired by 'words about words...' from s. themerson's semantic poetry

My research is about a Czech graphic designer named Radim Pesko who, along with contributing to various magazines, is running an Amsterdam based type-foundry (RP; a digital type-foundry established by himself in 2009). Occasionally he does curatorial practise and teaches in the graphic design department at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy Amsterdam.
In this text, I will focus on a collaboration Pesko did along with French graphic designer colleague Karl Nawrot in 2010 and compare it to Wim Crouwel’s “New Alphabet” from 1967.

Pesko and Nawrot made a family of four rather unique and aesthetically compelling type-faces; The Lÿon Family. This family is named up after Nawrot’s hometown Lyon, and the designer himself claims that the umlauts in his and Pesko’s ÿ were added to make it appear more personal and playful. The Lÿon font family was introduced to the public as a booklet supplement called “Newer Alphabets” to the “Typefaces Issue” of GRAPHIC (16th edition); a design magazine created by another colleague and friend of theirs, S-Korean Na Kim.

At the launch of Na Kim’s 17th edition of GRAPHIC (“When Design Becomes Attitudes”), both Pesko and Nawrot were there in person to have a talk about their collaboration on the Lÿon project. Lucky for me, since I happened to be in the audience.

I must mention that prior to this, I had made an attempt to interview Pesko via e-mail, but I found the talk at the magazine launch to be more fruitful for my research; basically all my questions were answered without me even having to ask them. The (funny and to some extent rivaling) dynamic between the two collaborators was also obviously easier to catch, and it helped me develop a more wholesome image of both their process and final outcome. But first a little more about the members of the Lÿon family; the Lÿon’s are Jean (after artist Jean Arp), Stan (after director and photographer Stanley Kubrick), Ulys (after Franco-Japanese animation series Ulysses 31) and Walt (after founder of Disney Pictures Walt Disney).

These brother type-faces are creatively based on a feeling or the essence of the characters they’ve been named after, as well as the fact that they have formal approaches to their subject qualities. This is also stated shortly by James Langdon in the “Newer Aphabet” booklet “…they are open and various and their spirit is this: to resist normative tendencies and to reject the idea of definitive form”, but as the booklet basically focuses on presenting the different family members and suggests various juxtapositions of their letters, it was quite helpful to hear the designers explain their work furthermore. Amongst other details, they mentioned how the different “Lÿon brothers” are created with the intention of being able to mix with each other; a feature I personally appreciate a lot because it encourages their potential users to be creative and exploring by being allowed to play around with them.

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Since the start of our Design Theory/Research course about typedesign, graphic design, foundries, fonts, typefaces etc. we have had a look into a, for me unknown but, very interesting world.

This research will be about Lineto which is a foundry that these days sells there Lineto fonts, like replica, via their website and they have type-designers who publish their own fonts through Lineto. We will further explore the similarities between type design, graphic design and art.

My research question will start us out with some history to get a grip on all the different terms that are used to find out what Lineto actually does. For me starting out as a rookie I’m trying to grasp the meaning of this all. This is an interesting step that can also help you in understanding this world on its own. After that we will dive further into the question what the similarities are between type design, graphic design and art.

A type-foundry is a company that designs typefaces. Typefoundries used to sell their typefaces made out of wood or metal and matrices that were used for line-casting machines like Linotype and Monotype. This is such a time consuming and expensive process that when the computer started to be used it was replaced by digital type which is mostly used today.

Now to first get some terms straightened out. The term typeface is often mistaken or used for font. The two terms had more clear meanings before the start of desktop publishing but faded. What the difference between font and typeface is is that a font points out a specific member of a type family like roman or boldface, while typeface shows a consistent visual style which can be a family.

Back to Lineto, Lineto sprung up into existence in 1993 right at the time when the computer started to get used extensively in people’s daily lives. The foundries in this computer age where called digital type foundries which accumulate and distribute typefaces as digitized fonts created by type-designers.

Typefoundries always had used catalogues that were updated every year but since the digital type came in to the scene it was almost impossible for a foundry to make a catalogue looking at the amount of types that were created and distributed.

This way of working was embraced by Lineto and five years after starting their business Cornel Windlin and Stephan Müller the founders of Lineto jointly set up Lineto.com to distribute their own typefaces through the internet. They also invited a number of other designers to publish their fonts alongside theirs.

If you look at the fonts on Lineto.com you start to wonder what the difference is between type design, graphic design and art. There are differences between the three but there is also a very strong cohering similarity which you can’t deny and this I find an interesting discovery.

Starting out with describing graphic design you see that it is a creative process which involves a client who provides the work and then there is a producer, printer, programmer or signmaker of some sort. At the end of the process the result is used to bring across a specific message to the viewer.

In art you see that it is also very much a creative process which brings across a specific message but usually addressing different issues but the principle is most definitely the same.

For a type designer it is the art of designing typefaces. Where the typeface is one or more fonts designed with a certain unity. The function that their end product is used for is also about getting a message across to an audience, a better description of it is that it is a tool for bringing across a message to the viewer.
So everyone of the professions that are described above is about visualizing an idea concept or bringing across an idea or thought or a tool for doing so. Type is so rooted in our system and culture that we cannot escape from its grip, there are always fundamental links rooted at the core of it all. Looking at it in this way I think can open up your mind to look at type in a new and different way as an artist.

Dimity Bruni and Manuel Krebs,two graphic designers from Switzerland. Both born in 1970 and met in art school, in Biel. They founded NORM in 1999 and created their own typographic language by ignoring existing conventions. NORM is now based in Zurich. They’re well known for their typeface «Simple» which first got used in their book The Things. Later, Ruedi Baur of Integral, Paris, asked them to redesign the typeface for use in the new corporate design of the Cologne-Bonn Airport – this version is named Simple-Airport.

Bruni and Krebs developed their own typographical brand. They invented their own way of putting the world into categories and they formulated two rules: — the world is divided into two groups:  3d things and 2d things. — anything invisible is not of our concern.

3d things:  3d things consists of physical things that are of material existence. These items should be solid and visible, though not necessarily visible with the eye.

2d things:  the 2d category can be put into four different groups based on dimensions. group 1, those which represent something pertaining to a three-dimensional space group 2, those which represent something not pertaining to a three-dimensional space group 3, those which represent nothing group 4, those which are as yet unknown to us

group 1 represents the physical spacial things. It is bound to its own being because we recognize 3d things through its build, size  and materiality. When speaking in 2d matter, things lose their necessity of being a certain size, light, color. This is quite a wide range of objects, so NORM has categorized group 1 in sizes, — smaller than human beings, but large enough to be seen with the eye — roughly as large as human beings — bigger than human beings, but also small enough to be seen

group 2 represents the non-spacious, nonphysical things. Things that come down to numbers and letters and abstract ideas like sounds. Letters are the most easy to understand. Letters can also be read as signs. They have a double function, we write them and read them. Letters define their own meaning in a very clear way; while sounds are more difficult to represent, read, and understand. Letters have principles, we have a certain way of making letters and this is why they are so recognizable. Letters are principles. Still, there is much room for playing and sculpting in this field. — when designing a new system of writing, signs should be simple. they should be simple, because it makes them easier to remember, to recognize, and reproduce. — also the signs should be in a small quantity, because it makes them easier to learn — no sign should resemble another, because it will create confusion. so each sign should appear no more than once — it should be possible to align the signs in straight rows. always on a horizontal/vertical grid. this is so we can recognize a text, even when the script is unknown to us. — the characters should be simple graphic forms, recognized, and written easily as possible.

group 3 These things represent nothing. the things indescribable and invisible, so no concern

group 4

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Annual design awards is an event which is announced almost by every design magazine/ company/ institution, whether it is the influential “Wallpaper” or just a blog of a random fashion lover. The best is picked out of everything, “from beds to breakfasts through jeans to genes”. However, when all the winners are praised, the time comes to remember those who weren’t lucky enough to fit on the pedestal. Being nominated as the worst is rather a dishonor for every designer or design company no matter if it’s a car or a pair of shoes.

Nevertheless, sometimes ‘bad’ is not enough to describe public opinion about a design piece. ‘The worst of the worst’ may sound dramatic, but this is a title used talking about… typography.

It is difficult to find a font or, frankly speaking, any piece of design which would be accepted more controversially than Comic Sans MS. Its naive, innocent and childlike appearance makes it so attractive for primary teachers and prayer groups of local churches. Yet it is also immature, juvenile and silly as if written by a 6-year-old, yelling ‘bad taste’ at everything where it pops out.

If some well-known logos were replaced with Comic Sans, it would look rather homely, warm, inoffensive and simply unsuitable. But when it comes to real examples, a restaurant menu presented in this font looks more like a kindergarden canteen while a warning sign loses its all respect immediately and seems to be rather an April Fool’s joke…

As if it was not enough, this font proves to be contagious. Ever since it’s first appearance in 1995, Comic Sans is now everywhere, even on the sides of ambulances or gravestones.

No wonder that such a vast misuse of a font has caused a big anti-Comic Sans campaign: various websites offers hilarious photostreams of Comic Sans spotted everywhere in the world; one can also email a comical educational pamphlet for a friend who is suspected to be a comic sans criminal. As if it was not enough, the hate campaign has it’s own website where special Ban Comic Sans T-shirts or coffee mugs can be purchased. Even more, visitors can donate for creating a documentary called Comic Sans Or The Most Hated Font In The World. The greatest haters can also download a special Safari extension which changes Comic Sans websites into Helvetica!

‘Every time you use Comic Sans, Faye will punch this adorable little bunny’, is written on a picture with a worried girl, holding a small white rabbit, crying ‘but I don’t want to punch the bunny’. The scale of hate sometimes seems to be taken to extreme or even absurd: “Misuse of the font is analogous to showing up for a black tie event in a clown costume”, claims the creators of the hate campaign.

It is interesting to know that originally Comic Sans wasn’t designed for wide use. It was actually created for Microsoft Bob, a software program included in Windows 95. A little dog which was used as a help character ‘talked’ in Times New Roman, a font which was a bit boring, not warm and helpful-looking at all. That’s when Vincent Connare, a typographer who worked for Microsoft, was asked to create a special font for the program.

Apparently Connare was a big fan of comics. Inspired by “Watchmen”, a popular graphic novel, trying mimic its handwritten letters in speech bubbles, he ended up with now inglorious Comic Sans.

What was the secret of it’s enormous popularity? When Microsoft included the font in Word of Windows 95, Comic Sans suddenly bursted like a virus. It was something new, unseen and fun-looking. Connare explains it simply: “because it is sometimes better than Times New Roman”.