Dear Startups, Lobster is the new Comic Sans

Nothing at all, and there was nothing wrong with Comic Sans either. However it drives my friends who aspire to be designers into frothing fits of rage.

It was explained to me this way, "Chuck lets say that bubble sorts and bloom filters were these versatile algorithms that worked really well on a few things, but a bunch of cut-n-paste programmers started using them for every program they wrote, hello world with a bubble sort and a bloom filter, a temperature monitor with a bubble sort and a bloom filter, a file system with a bubble sort and a bloom filter, wouldn't it drive you NUTS?"

And I have to admit when I'm being honest with myself that folks who program 'cook book' style (which is to say they re-use code that kinda works and then bodge it into shape with a hack or two) do rub me the wrong way.

Apparently this is how designers feel about things like Comic Sans and the four box table layout and the any number of things that people do to put together web sites that the creator enjoys, but are not actually designed.

untog• 14 years ago

I think the larger point there is "does any of that matter"? I don't think it does. It's possible to be a lazy programmer and a lazy designer and still be entirely successful. Understandable that it irritates programmers and designers, but it's a fact of life.

wmil• 14 years ago

I've seen formal government documents signed by ministers that were printed in Comic Sans.

Sure, there's a place for Comic Sans, but it's used in so many places that it shouldn't be.

ericskiff5• 14 years ago

Indeed - it is a very nice font. Unfortunately we're ALL using it in our projects, and it can make projects look lazy or "me too".

It's sad, because it was a very nice font, but it's just overused.

sp3322• 14 years ago

Nice fonts should be used as often as possible. I would be happy if more people used Lobster, because it's nice!

tylermenezes• 14 years ago

... said the company with the awful trying-to-be-hip design.

tokenizer• 14 years ago

Looks like the most simplest wordpress template to me. I'd appreciate any thought over no thought when it comes to design.

ericskiff5• 14 years ago

Hahaha, touche. The 5in5NYC design needs some serious work :) It's absolutely on my todo.

alinajaf• 14 years ago

Wow, I'm no expert but you're right. That header image is rather fugly.

sp3322• 14 years ago

I really don't understand this rant. Lobster is a title font, not a body font. Also unlike Comic Sans, it's actually pretty nice. The argument seems to be that Lobster is "overplayed" which is not only a snobbish, whiny thing to say but completely ignores the fact that Helvetica, Times New Roman, Arial, Georgia, etc. are used much more often. In fact you wouldn't notice Lobster at all except that it replaces the Arial you're used to seeing.

ericskiff5• 14 years ago

Ouch :)

My point is largely that Lobster has a much more defined and recognizable look than classic "Sans" fonts like Arial and Helvetica and "Serif" fonts like Times and Georgia.

The look is recognizable enough that it evokes comparison to other sites, which you may want to consider. It can also break down the fourth wall between your site and it's viewers if they recognize the font. They go "oh, that's lobster, one of google's free fonts" instead of "nice logo" which, again might not be what you're after.

tptacek5• 14 years ago

Professional designers can spot Gotham instantly, and will make fun of you for using it in a logotype. The relevance of that to a web app developer is zero.

LoonyPandora• 14 years ago

The problem is its overuse, not it's qualities as a typeface. Comic Sans is not a bad typeface, it was merely overused and became a cliche. Lobster is well down that same path.

gyardley2• 14 years ago

Comic Sans is a terrible typeface. Frequency of use has nothing to do with it.

gyardley2• 14 years ago

Oy. Comic Sans isn't problematic because everyone uses it, it's problematic because it's a bad font. The kerning alone is reason enough not to use it.

http://www.kadavy.net/blog/posts/why-you-hate-comic-sans/

By this author's logic we should all stop using Helvetica, too - it's way too common.

ericskiff5• 14 years ago

I agree that Lobster is a better font than comic sans, but both fonts have particular uses, and they both have a signature look that people recognize.

Helvetica, in my opinion, is a fantastic utility. It gets out of the way, and only those who know to look for it notice it.

jonnathanson• 14 years ago

The genius of Helvetica is that it's styled, but subtle. It "gets out of the way," but not entirely. The common assertion about Helvetica is that it's "clean" and unstylized. But actually, its cleanliness comes from the assertion of a certain style.

On a semi-related note, I highly recommend the documentary "Helvetica," as well as the books about the development of the font. I'm not a font wonk by any means, but I do enjoy design. Anyone with even a passing interest in the subject will get a kick out of the film.

powrtoch2• 14 years ago

Lobster and Comic Sans are both highly stylized font-faces, Helvetica is not. It's okay for Helvetica to be common because it doesn't scream "Hey look at me, I'm Helvetica!"

When non-stylized things become very common, it's usually because they're good all around choices: their popularity advances the field. When extremely stylized things become very common, it typically leads to embarrassment down the road.

In music for example, it's now very common to have the drums in the center of the mix. This is the default because it makes sense. You only notice the panning of the drums when it's something else. In the eighties it became extremely common to use almost nothing but synths, and to have the snare drum drenched in reverb. You listen back to eighties material now, and at best you appreciate the campiness of these things. Mostly they seem like a weird obsession that suddenly gripped the whole industry and warped everything to come out of it for a decade. The modern day equivalent of course is Autotune.

tptacek5• 14 years ago

Grotesque sans were uncommon before the (say) 60s, and were very stylized for the time. You just don't notice that because we've been accustomed to them for so long, and because they are very effective for their purpose.

The parent comment is correct. Comic Sans isn't just stylized; it's a stylized face designed for a very particular purpose (as a stand-in for the hand lettering in comic books). And the problem with Comic Sans isn't that it's overused. It's that it's used in inappropriate places.

There is nothing wrong with making safe, popular choices in typefaces. Designers may gripe about how cliched Gotham is, but Gotham works. Comic Sans virtually never works. This post does not make a case that Lobster never works.

baddox• 14 years ago

> It's okay for Helvetica to be common because it doesn't scream "Hey look at me, I'm Helvetica!"

But it does scream that at me.

posabsolute• 14 years ago

I was shooting for the same thing. This guy does not seems to know anything about typography and his article is ridiculously small for such a big topic.

Comic Sans is grotesque and was badly designed from the start. One has to wonder why it was popular, i'm sure there is a ton of article about that (surely the author should have deepen a bit in the subject and check that),

But if I would have to guess, in the 2000 debut it was one of the widely available fonts that had a different (poor) look.

Lobster is NOTHING like comic sans, it's a good font unfortunately overused. That's it.

huggyface• 14 years ago

The vast majority of readers are not font snobs. They don't debate the merits of kerning or whitespace balance.

But they do notice when trendy fonts trend. And comic sans most certainly did trend, and it was that trend -- and not its relative font merit -- that made it so deridden. It is the Croc shoes of the font world. Wow that analogy works really well because while shoe snobs can rail off the problems with the mighty croc (ignoring its benefits), they completely miss the mark on why there is the general anti-croc backlash (hint -- hipsterism. Anti-populism. etc)

This article is dead-on.

mistercow2• 14 years ago

Well, you probably really should not use Helvetica or Arial in your logo.

harrylove• 14 years ago

Part of the beauty of Helvetica is that people typically don't think about it. It's everywhere and it's a subtle typeface. That's why many brands use it in their wordmarks.

For example, see Helvetica and Neue Helvetica in the logos of BMW, 3M, Gap, American Apparel, Jeep, The NBA, Lufthansa, Target, Motorola, Verizon Wireless, McDonald's and Microsoft. There are many others I'm sure.

Now if you had said Papyrus, I would tend to agree with you.

jakejake• 14 years ago

Lobster may be an overused font of the moment, but it doesn't have the pedigree of Comic Sans. Not even close.

Once Lobster has shown up consistently on PTA meeting itineraries, junior high pep-rally announcements and yard-sale flyers for about 15 years then maybe that font will be able to compare itself to Comic Sans.

studiofellow4• 14 years ago

If anything, Lobster is the new FF Dax. Dax and its siblings were the popular startup branding typefaces a few years back.

And, Comic Sans is not a terrible typeface. It's just terrible for almost every application, except for comic book lettering.

Still, I fail to see why this is a problem. Design trends happen.

dandelany• 14 years ago

Lobster isn't bad, it's just overused at the moment. I might instead say that Lobster is the new Gotham, which has been overused as a header font since Obama used it in his 2008 presidential campaign (see http://flip-design.blogspot.com/2011/01/gotham-most-overused...).

mnicole2• 14 years ago

Lobster is bad. Bello is bad. They're bad because they are ill-designed typefaces that leave much to be desired in the realm of readability and just the general aesthetic. They're display fonts that you can't compare to something like Gotham that can be used as display, headline or body.

Saying Gotham is overused is like saying Arial, Tahoma, Verdana are overused for web. If it is clean, visible at a distance and generic looking enough not to be annoying, it's hard to say it is overused, much like Helvetica.

Note: I say this as a designer that sees Lobster and Bello used (almost literally) hundreds of times a day in various capacities, a lot like Museo back in the day (yuck). Not sure if it is because they're Google fonts or if one startup used it and therefore every company had to use it, but in most situations they're the completely wrong type to use and when you see them, it's usually a sign of indolence/ignorance or lack of a real designer.

studiofellow4• 14 years ago

What you're saying is that Lobster, Bello, and Museo offend your sensibilities and are used frequently. That doesn't mean they are of poor quality. Bad choices? Maybe. Bad typeface designs? No.

gringomorcego• 14 years ago

I spent a minute before clicking that link trying to figure out wtf it meant.

All I could think of was how serving lobster to your employees is considered the new comic sans. An interesting world to think about, if I may say so.

cpeterso2• 14 years ago

Comic Serif: http://idsgn.org/posts/comic-sans-comic-serif/

jQueryIsAwesome• 14 years ago

Nothing beats 'I hate comic sans': http://www.dafont.com/i-hate-comic-sans.font

georgemcbay• 14 years ago

I'll throw in my two cents on the "Lobster is the new... XYZ" by chucking out Papyrus. They are both highly-stylized fonts that are fine on their own merits but highly overrused within a certain niche (Papyrus for anything supposedly 'holistic', Lobster for anything supposedly 'startup').

Now we just need an "Avatar"-sized hugely commercial startup to use Lobster to finally run it into the ground.

michaelbuckbee• 14 years ago

You mentioned Avatar, which chose Papyrus, narrowly missing Trajan the movie font -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t87QKdOJNv8

pikewood• 14 years ago

I'd compare Lobster more to Papyrus (http://www.papyruswatch.com) and Copperplate (http://ihatecopperplate.blogspot.com/) rather than Comic Sans.

sageikosa• 14 years ago

Comic Sans makes me remember I have a slight astigmatism.

Lobster makes me want to buy some soup, or order a la carte. Well, at least I don't cringe looking at it.

Kluny• 14 years ago

Fuuuu now I'm seeing it everywhere. Thanks...

kenrikm• 14 years ago

Lobster is a decent font however it's way, way overused. Just please for the love of god don't use it in your logo (Some YC companies have) at best it's going to look generic.

pg_bot• 14 years ago

Pacifico is the new Lobster. http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/pacifico

adangit• 14 years ago

Title should read: Dear Codecademy, Lobster is the new Comic Sans.

stevewillows• 14 years ago

In Vancouver (and most likely everywhere else) Bleeding Cowboy is smothering 'trendy' salons and other related signage.

Maybe it's time we have graphic design as a licensed trade.

acoyfellow• 14 years ago

I'm so glad someone pointed this out, but it's horribly ironic that the design of the blog and the header on there are god-awful.

Dear Startups, Lobster is the new Comic Sans

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