That is, is there a font in these character sets that is:
- Well known,
- Widely used for inappropriate purposes, and
- A marker of questionable design choice in serious application?
-
4Russin here. Comic Sans has cyrillic letters. No need for another font ;-)– KromsterCommented Aug 16, 2015 at 19:47
Add a comment
|
2 Answers
Japanese
In Japanese, a great candidate for Comic Sans is 創英角ポップ体 sōei kaku poppu tai. This font is extremely informal, is widely used (for example in leaflets in government offices, whatever), comes with Windows, is widely frowned upon (read: "hated"), etc. This is the font
and this is what comes up as a suggestion when searching for it on Google:
The third suggestion is ダサい "uncool". Need I say more?
Chinese
In Chinese, the corresponding font seems to be "Young Lady", like this one
which for example is compared to Comic Sans here
老實說國外設計師對Comic sans的觀感可能就像是台灣設計師對少女體的感覺吧！
(roughly) To be honest, foreign designers' perception of Comic Sans might be like Taiwanese designers feel about [Young Lady]!
I think the font is called 華康少女 in Traditional and 华康少女 in Simplified Chinese.
Cyrillic and Greek
Cyrillic (U+0400–U+04FF) and Greek (U+0370–U+03FF) are both covered by Comic Sans MS, so if you want The Comic Sans, look no further. (The first version to support Greek & Cyrillic scripts is version 2.00, released in the summer of 1997.)
But one wonders whether speakers of languages with the Cyrillic alphabet identified much with a font associated with comics of American superheroes such as Superman or Captain America, in universes where Russians and Communists and Soviets were supervillain material...
-
2(on your footnote: ah ... close but not quite. Vince Connare's design is, quite famously, based on Dave Gibbon's lettering for Watchmen: "I think the Comic Sans font is dreadful.". The Soviets are not the nicest guys around in that comic, though that's largely only a minor background – after all, it is placed in the mid-80s – and the real villains are actually among us.)– JongwareCommented Aug 19, 2015 at 12:42
-
2@Jongware I don't really know a lot about American comics and/or the history of Comic Sans, but the authors of Watchmen are all British and, according to Wikipedia, the story was used to "deconstruct and parody the superhero concept". Nevermind what the original creator thought of Comic Sans, my impression is that people associate it more with American superheroes than with "deconstructing the superhero concept".– EarthliŋCommented Aug 19, 2015 at 12:59
For what it's worth, I found something for chinese that seems to be their equivalent of Comic Sans, at least to their designers. Because as for Comic Sans, people seem to actually love the font and use it everywhere... except designers.
The font is called "Young Lady Font" but Google often translate it to "Girls Body" and I've also seen them call another similar font "Doll body" or "Wah Hong Girl." You probably saw a lot of design using it. I found something on Quora about it, the question was asked there too.
And this guy also suggest to not use these fonts.*
This graphic design post makes fun again of the font Girls Body (and Times.)*
And this one as well, saying something like "Girls body font is not easy to read; seriously, do you really want to read an article written with that font?"
This guy seems to speak the same "language" as us. He's comparing the Girls font to the Comic Sans and says something like this about it:
"Always some @ # $% ^ & @ # $ of people will use this font on their web page or report [...]For the Anglo-speaking people, Comic Sans is such a presence."
And here is a design contest using Girls Body Font and mentioning something like "Yes, I know it's a font hard to accept but if you can overcome the obstacle of designing with Girls Body, there's nothing that can stop you after this"
Someone will need to contribute for greek, japanese, and cyrillic!
*Yes, you might need Google Translator
