Comic Sans is one of the most notorious and recognizable typefaces in the world of typography. Designed by Vincent Connare in 1994 for Microsoft, Comic Sans was created with a very specific purpose in mind: to be a fun, informal font that emulates the style of comic book lettering. However, over the years, Comic Sans has become one of the most divisive and controversial fonts in existence, often the subject of jokes and derision within the design community. Despite this, Comic Sans has maintained a strong presence, largely due to its ease of use and friendly, approachable aesthetic.
The history of Comic Sans begins with its origins in Microsoft Bob, a software package designed to make computers more accessible to novice users. The program featured an animated dog named Rover, who would communicate with users through speech bubbles. Connare, who was working at Microsoft at the time, felt that the formal, serif-based Times New Roman font being used in the speech bubbles was completely inappropriate for a cartoon dog. Inspired by the hand-lettered text commonly seen in comic books, Connare set out to create a typeface that would be more fitting for Rover’s speech.
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