For many of us, the most shocking revelation to come out of CERN's Higgs boson announcement today was quite unrelated to the science itself. Rather, we were blown away by the fact that a team made up of some of the most undoubtedly brilliant people in the world believe that Comic Sans is an appropriate font for such a historic occasion.
While criticizing the much-maligned typeface is almost as much of a cliché as using it by now, and there could even have been worse choices, Comic Sans designer Vincent Connare seems to agree that his infamous creation isn't quite the best match for particle physics announcements. Particle physicist Brian Cox, on the other hand...
Comments
Getting into an argument with Brian Cox isn’t usually a good idea.
By d0mth0ma5 on 07.04.12 5:09am
Especially with Comic Sans… it will become a moment with Brain Cocks
By Kangal on 07.04.12 8:50am
There is no problem with comic sans as well as there is no problem with using it for something that will enter the history books.
By Bahumbug on 07.04.12 5:10am
You and Cox are both Comic Sans Criminals.
By Byakkun on 07.04.12 3:45pm
A groundbreaking discovery in physics and you guys care about the font of the slides.
By AlternNocturn on 07.04.12 5:11am
Different people, different priorities.
By deva_p on 07.04.12 5:12am
Yes, some people have incorrect priorities.
By catonkatonk on 07.04.12 3:24pm
Because I don’t care about the science, but am entertained by fonts, my priorities are “incorrect”? I couldn’t care less what they discovered, especially when the slides look hilarious.
By PowerCodfish on 07.04.12 9:32pm
some people dont care they might die of a drug overdose, that doesnt make it less incorrect.
By Revrak on 07.05.12 12:20am
It’s okay to care about fonts, but really, you should also care at least a little about this discovery.
By mxwp on 07.05.12 12:02pm
What someone should and shouldn’t care about is not up to you to decide.
By steve19137 on 07.06.12 1:55pm
When the scientists of this world get together to create a time machine so that they can go back in time and stop Vincent Connare from creating Comic Sans, the typographers and OCD graphic designers of this planet will be impressed.
Until then…Higgs what?
By nonimaus on 07.04.12 5:43am
I’m sure CERN’s Higgs Boson is very nice but I think I’ll wait for Apple’s iBoson, which you just know is going to be much cooler!
By RobotPi on 07.04.12 6:37am
It will likely be announced with slides using Helvetica so it will already be infinitely better.
By geoken on 07.04.12 8:40am
I think Apple uses Myriad Pro for presentations and branding.
By ericmlaine on 07.04.12 9:12am
They do. Also, slightly off topic, but about Myriad Pro. If you use Myriad Pro in Illustrator or another vector program, and take all the “holes” in the letters out (like the triangle in “A”), it makes for a really hip and fresh font. It works especially well with “O” and “Q”.
By steve19137 on 07.04.12 2:49pm
Cool, I’ll hang on to that one!
By PowerCodfish on 07.04.12 9:34pm
inb4 Apple launches a patent lawsuit against CERN and God (read: whoever/whatever the mechanism behind the laws of physics in our universe) for “infringing on their creation”.
By samuelrmilns on 07.04.12 10:12am
indeed. Balsamiq wireframing app even uses it’s to take the focus OFF the design and more on the content.. although it’s indeed not pretty to look at ;)
By tomhermans on 07.04.12 7:01am
So, there are like…..Font Trolls? Because I sort of find the font used…..kind of irrelevant in comparison to the actual discovery. I don’t think it should go, “OH MY GOD, we have Higgs! Someone find the typographist so we can find the correct font in which to present this!”.
By TCrimson05t on 07.04.12 2:38pm
I’ve encountered this many times from top scientists, and I can’t help but be bothered by it a little too. But there is perfectly good reason for it. We are talking about some of the smartest people in the world, voluntarily spending their lives making very long hours in a severely underpaid profession with a relatively low social status. Font choice for a presentation sits very low on their list of priorities.
I guess they are too busy making the future.
By GebradenKip on 07.04.12 5:13am
Comic Sans is the default selection in LaTeX, Keynote and PowerPoint, is it?
Honest question, I use neither.
By csoren on 07.04.12 5:36am
No it isn’t. I guess I should have said “proper font choice”. I’m guessing it stems from people who have no experience with or knowledge of typography left to their own devices to make a presentation that tries to explain extremely complicated concepts as simply as possible. Comic Sans seems to have a natural draw to it.
I think the problem is worsened by the widespread use by scientists of LaTeX for their written materials. If you always write in what is essentially plain-text, you don’t have a need to learn about typography. Of course, the resulting presentation problem can be easily fixed by using LaTeX for your presentations too.
By GebradenKip on 07.04.12 5:46am
What’s so ridiculous is that most of the time, your applications are using a system-wide default, which is almost always Times or Arial (or occasionally, Myriad). There is absolutely no way they accidentally used Comic Sans. Even if it’s the most infinitesimally insignificant of decisions for the these scientists, somebody at some point sat there and said to themselves “I think I’ll use this font.”
There’s no explaining that away.
By gogadgetgo on 07.04.12 10:10am
It actually amazes me that this happens. 95% of people know how to dress decently. We all have a sense of what looks good and bad to a certain degree. Yet we still keep selecting Comic Sans as if there was a bad-taste PowerPoint party going on, and we’re attending.
By PowerCodfish on 07.04.12 9:43pm