Ban Comic Sans

Some times what we notice and despise, others probably aren’t aware of until we point them out. The sensitivity to good and bad design is often privy to designers only. And, in this case Holly and David Comb’s ‘Ban Comic Sans’ takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to celebrating good typography.

Manifesto Extract

We are summoning forth the proletariat around the globe to aid us in this revolution. We call on the common man to rise up in revolt against this evil of typographical ignorance. We believe in the gospel message “ban comic sans.” It shall be salvation to all who are literate. By banding together to eradicate this font from the face of the earth we strive to ensure that future generations will be liberated from this epidemic and never suffer this scourge that is the plague of our time.

Geoff’s Comment

The Ban Comic Sans campaign is a great example of principle 2: Manifestos terminate the past.
And, it has a manifested itself into a shining example of principle 9: Manifestos have presence.
A wide variety of artifacts have been created to support the campaign including:

• A collection of photos – inappropriate uses of Comic Sans – to reinforce their case for banning it’s use
• A list of alternative fonts – if you’re going to say ‘stop this’, it helps if you say ‘do this instead’
• Imagery to forward the cause in the form of stickers, coffee mugs and t-shirts
• Alternative manifesto formats, eg cartoons
• Videos that allow others to contribute to your cause – The Designer Daily version ‘Hitler freaks out over Comic Sans MS’ is hilarious.
• A tool for doing something to realise your goal. In this case, a Web Browser plugin that will swap Comic Sans to Helvetica
• A proposal for a documentary – that didn’t get off the ground
• An online shoot-em-up game from Agency Fusion – we all need one of them for our manifesto!

Sources

Full transcript and links to other artifacts: http://bancomicsans.com
Simon Garfield, Just My Type

Questions

What will you create to bring your manifesto to life? How will you give it presence?