The Ten Command-ments

Jun 20

Written By Josh Steinmetz

Thou Shalt Never Use the Following Fonts

Comic Sans: Enough has been said about this one. I have nothing to add. Just use this instead.
Papyrus: The Avatar font. The SNL font. The cliché of a cliches. The faux-rustic spiritual vegetarian font the nail salon on Victory Blvd still uses. It's rarely the best choice for communicating anything other than a joke. Even that is questionable. Hard “no”.
Curlz: It’s just plain ugly. It has its place, and that’s right in the garbage can. Skip it. Forever.
Bradley Hand ITC: The problem with most "handwriting" fonts is that they don't really look like handwriting. Bradley Hand ITC is no exception.
Stencil: Stencil fonts can be a “neat” tool for certain design contexts, but they're almost never what you want them to be. Fuck em.
Copperplate Gothic: Despite its name, Copperplate Gothic is neither gothic or a true copperplate. It is the font of douchebag finance bros who think American Psycho is a superhero movie. It’s shit. Hard pass.
Hobo: It looks as good as the name would lead you to believe. Don’t waste your time. Move along.
Jokerman: A typographical abomination birthed from the brown acid drenched depths of design hell. If Comic Sans and Curlz had a very stupid baby, it would look like this.
Zapfino: According to wikipedia Zapfino is notable for its flamboyant and flowing letterforms, taking inspiration from the designer's own beautiful calligraphy. How the font ended up looking so fucked, only he knows.
*BONUS* That font you currently love the most that you know you probably shouldn’t strongarm into a design unnecessarily: We all have those fonts that we're just dying to use. OUR personal favorite flavor of the moment. Before you do it, take a step back and think: is it really the best choice for this project? Not “do I like it?” But “is this appropriate for this project?” If you can answer “Yes,” and mean it. Then by all means break this rule.