Further to my typographic obsession, I decided to set myself a challenge: To learn about at least one font each week, and type my finding here. Today's challenge: Comic Sans.

After blogging about Papyrus, fellow designers have said to me that it has its place, just like Comic Sans. So my objective was to find out what this is, as I HATE comic sans, but I then wonder if I have just 'learnt' to hate it? During my early teens, with my parents first PC, I loved it, I may have even used it for an essay in English about 'Robin Hood princes of Thieves,' oh dear.

So... it began in 1994, by a typographer called Vincent Connare, obviously designed to reflect 'comic book' lettering. It soon became so wide spread that http://bancomicsans.com/main/ was established in 1999.

To me it looks many things; unsophisticated, friendly and unauthoritive. During my investigation, I actually began to find it far less offensive as a logo than say a word document such as a work memo. It does have its uses, however it only works when it has been manipulated almost beyond recognition, or for something physical; for example I can actually see it working nicely for some children's style building blocks in letter forms.

Check out this awesome site to see some really creative uses:

http://designinformer.com/comic-sans-history-examples-best-practices/

and flickr for the worst:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/comicsans/pool/

General conclusion, just don't touch it unless you really know what you're doing. Or want to make an ironic statement.