To combat the rougue use of fonts like Comic Sans or Papyrus in your church, have a style guide for what fonts are appropriate to use where. That might have worked 15 years ago, but in 2013, feeling churchy “Papyrus style” communicates you’re stuck in the past. But now I think many non-experienced designers use it because it feels churchy. Maybe churches were drawn to the font because it made them feel like going back to biblical times. That ranges from Mediterranean restaurants to churches.

Designed as font to mimic calligraphy on old parchment a paper, this font became a go to for anyone looking to make something look old. Much like Comic Sans, this font has made the “do not use” list because of its misuse as well. Our second font foe, Papyrus, carries a similar disdain. There are so many fonts available it might be better to look at something else.įont lesson #2: Understand certain fonts carry a stigma. Because so much is written about the disdain for this font, there will be some people that look at it and make a judgment. Parents.įont lesson #1: Use fonts that are appropriate for the age of your audience.Įven if Comic Sans is age appropriate for a project you’re doing, you still have to ask if it’s the right font to use. But remember who’s actually reading those letters you send home from Sunday school. I’ll give Comic Sans a bit of a pass for things directly used by children. Could you really take us seriously if that was how it always looked? I took a plug-in and turned Church Juice completely Comic Sans. The same is true if you’re using a child’s font to promote adult parts of your church. Even today, I get emails from workplace adults that use Comic Sans and it’s hard for me to take them seriously. Yet in a word processing world where people could choose something other than Times New Roman or Arial, Comic Sans started showing up in grown-up places that were supposed to be professional. It was meant to be childish and informal. Microsoft commissioned the font in the mid-90s to mimic a comic book font. While I hold some ill-will toward these fonts, it has less to do with what they actually look like and more to do with how their being misused.įor our font enemy Comic Sans, the biggest issues comes when it’s used for anything other than children’s ministry.

And in the church world, these two fonts find their way into far too many publications. There are two fonts in the design world that are equally despised: Comic Sans and Papyrus.

Comic papyrus