As far back as I can remember, I’ve had an almost physical revulsion to Comic Sans. Clearly I am not alone, but an article in the Wall Street Journal last week shed some light on the “origin story” of this much-loathed font:

The proliferation of Comic Sans is something of a fluke. In 1994, Mr. [Vincent] Connare was working on a team at Microsoft creating software that consumers eventually would use on home PCs. His designer’s sensibilities were shocked, he says, when, one afternoon, he opened a test version of a program called Microsoft Bob for children and new computer users. The welcome screen showed a cartoon dog named Rover speaking in a text bubble. The message appeared in the ever-so-sedate Times New Roman font.

Mr. Connare says he pulled out the two comic books he had in his office, “The Dark Knight Returns” and “Watchmen,” and got to work, inspired by the lettering and using his mouse to draw on a computer screen. Within a week, he had designed his legacy.

This probably isn’t news to anyone who has studied typography, but as a font noob it certainly makes me look on Comic Sans with a little more reverence.

Related posts:

  1. Brief, non-spoilery review of ‘Watchmen’