The media world is aflutter today because The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia’s oldest newspaper, decided to put comic sans on its front page.
SMH editor-in-chief Darren Goodsir took to Twitter to defend the decision, describing it as a “underrated font”. He revealed more about his unusual tastes in an email to BuzzFeed written entirely in Comic Sans (you can go to the website for a screenshot if your eyes can stand it).
“I love the font — but am more than aware that my affections are not universally shared,” Goodsir told BuzzFeed. “As for the newspaper, the decision was made to match the surreal nature of the shocking revelations at the ICAC — and it was felt the font would best depict the comic-book feel we were trying to give to the front; as if to make a mockery of the appalling displays in the witness box from a former politician and a current parliamentarian. I am very pleased with the result.”
If you’re wondering why the online world is so outraged by this “unassuming jaunty typeface”, the BBC has the backstory here.
Helpfully, the Ban Comic Sans movement has assembled a list of alternative fonts for those occasions — like the ongoing train wreck that is slowly consuming both sides of NSW politics — that call for a more expressive typeface.
Next time can we suggest something along the lines of OH CRAP?
“Journalist humour” – it’s so slipstack?
What a lot of fuss about nothing. So precious! I thought comic sans did the job it was intended to.
Poppycock! And more Poppycock!
What the SMH did was perfect. For the clowns who said the words there could be no better illustration.
So you don’t like Comic Sans. Should they have used Times New Roman? Or perhaps Warnock Pro! Which is your taste? Undoubtedly the SMH drew attention to its font usage but whether to the article they illustrated is open to question. We are always distracted by the minute, the insignificant, the irrelevant. As a Newspaper perhaps you need to grow up!
Cartoons on the front page – sinking to Murdoch’s level?