Author(s): Simon Garfield

Graphic Design

Comic Sans is one of the most used and most reviled typefaces of the digital age. How was it made? How could it spawn a movement to ban it and yet still be so widely promoted by educators? What does its accidental creator make of its contentious and singular history?

This quirky and unique book considers how the computer transformed type into something that anyone could use and have an opinion on. It examines how a typeface, correctly used, may sell us almost anything, and how new types with names such as Crash Soul, Lovely Scream Queens and Ampersandist (to name but three recent examples of the hundreds issued each year) each attempt to keep the alphabet exciting and new. And it concludes with an alluring question: could Comic Sans now be the coolest typeface ever made?