Will Comic Neue Win the Battle?

Comic-sans is the most hated font in the world. It has been a center of humor and ridicule since its conception and one of the reasons for this is because it has been used in many inappropriate places like graves and office memos. This particular typeface has the uncanny ability to incite anger in some people (mostly designers) and laughter in others (again designers). Though it was originally designed to be featured on Microsoft Word 95 for ‘Bob the helper’; its usage on professional platforms by common people made it the laughing stock.

Many designers have claimed that it’s a bad mark on the sophisticated world of typography but now a designer Craig Rozynski has dared to take this ever despised font to another level. He has designed characters and letters that have the casualness of the previous font but which doesn’t carry the silliness or amateurish qualities of Comic-sans. The new font is named Comic Neue.

A close look at Comic Neue and its variations show that each stroke implemented in the design has the same width throughout and creates what is known as the ‘mono-weight’ typeface. This characteristic of the font makes it mirror strokes that are common with a pen or pencil. The main difference between Comic-sans and its successor is that while the strokes of Comic-sans are crooked and uneven, Comic Neue is exact and precise with the strokes and the end buttons of each letter uniformly rounded. Though these changes may seem small, combined together they give the new font a professional yet casual tone.

Here’s a small infographic on Comic-sans and Comic Neue to show why there’s such a hype about them. Will this effort by the ambitious designer be acceptable and appreciated by the design community, or will it be thrashed like its predecessor? What do you think?

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