Comic Sans? Oh NO!!!

Working with a lot of Primary Schools we are often asked to use a font with a single story lowercase a and g rather than the more ornate letter-press versions of these letters. So that any school’s signage or display reflects how pupils are taught letter formation and handwriting skills, and allows early readers to decode text more easily.

Many clients only know of Comic Sans and when they ask, all the designers in the world say “Oh NO!”

“If you love Comic Sans, feel free to use it with the understanding that it makes your work appear amateurish and thus the information it presents is perceived as unprofessional,”

says Robin Williams, author of The Non-Designer’s Design and Type Books and How to Boss Your Fonts Around.

Comic Sans was originally designed back in 1994 and has been supplied by Microsoft windows since 1995, hence why it’s so ubiquitous. The font eventually found widespread popularity and derision in equal amounts. Most designers agree that you can use many alternatives to Comic Sans and still have clarity, legibility and element of informality.

So here’s helpful list of fonts that ­either contain a single story a and g or contain alternative characters (in an OpenType font both forms can be contained within the one font and us lovely creatives can switch between the two forms in our design software):

  • Adequate
  • Advert
  • Apple Casual
  • Apple Chancery
  • Ayuthaya
  • Berlin Sans FB
  • Cambridge-round from aviation
  • Campton Bold
  • Chevin-std from g-type
  •  FF Advert
  • FF Basic Gothic
  • FF Chambers Sans
  • FF Dagny
  • FF DIN Round
  • FF Duper
  • FF Jackie
  • FF Karbid Slab
  • FF Karbid Text
  • FF Lance
  • FF Nuvo
  • FF Nuvo Mono
  • FF Profile
  • FF Schulbuch Nord
  • FF Super Grotesk
  • FF Unit
  • FF Unit Rounded
  • FF Unit Slab
  • FF Utility
  • FF Zwo
  • Futura
  • Heinemann from Fontsworks UK
  • Hiruko from thinkdust
  • Litera
  • OpenDyslexic from Dyslexic Fonts
  • Report from Typodermic
  • Sassoon from Monotype
  • UkrainianFuturis Bold Font
  • UkrainianSchoolBook BoldItalic Font
  • Ultura Light, medium, italic, heavy
  • Uncle Salty 2 Font
  • Uncle Salty 9
  • Unit BlackAlternate Font
  • Unit BlackAlternateItalic Font
  • Unit MediumAlternate Font
  • Unit RegularAlternate
  • Unit LightAlternate Font

by Carly