Comic Sans has been around since 1994, and to be fair, it was intended to be a child-oriented font and was based on comic book scripts. It really rubs people the wrong way though—its casual look tends to be used by people who use unnecessary quotation marks and don't know the difference between your and you're, in our experience. The Ban Comic Sans movement was started in 1999 by two graphic designers; they maintain that the look of your typeface should match the tone of the text:
Thus when designing a “Do Not Enter” sign the use of a heavy-stroked, attention-commanding font such as Impact or Arial Black is appropriate. Typesetting such a message in Comic Sans would be ludicrous. Though this is sort of misuse is frequent, it is unjustified. Clearly, Comic Sans as a voice conveys silliness, childish naivete, irreverence, and is far too casual for such a purpose. It is analogous to showing up for a black tie event in a clown costume.
Despite this, some evil mastermind artist named Jesse England has tweaked and 1970s typewriter to type in Comic Sans. He calls it the Sincerity Machine. "I realized there was nothing stopping me from making this particular alteration," England explains. Well, yes—common decency. "[Comic Sans] is also a mark of sincerity for those who do not have graphic design experience." Congrats on trolling us all, Jesse.
[via Popular Mechanics]
