Scientific Proof: Comic Sans Sucks for Email

Just before we launched our HTML email designer back in November, Mark (our main engineer) walked over to my desk and asked me, "So, um---should we include the option for the Comic Sans font in our WYSIWYG editor?"

I confess, my initial reaction was "#&*@ No!"

But then I remembered how a fellow designer once accused me of being a "font-nazi" (I only allowed for arial, helvetica, times, and franklin gothic on my computer) and he recommended I read Stop Stealing Sheep. It opened up my mind (a little) and I came to accept diversity in my font folder.

So I told Mark to just include it. "Who knows, there might be some rare situation where someone needs that font" I said. Maybe that was a mistake.

Matt Haughey just posted a link to "The Effect of Typeface on the Perception of Email" which is scientific "proof" that comic sans is not seen as very appropriate for business email.

But wait, I know of at least 2 MailChimp customers who run comic book stores! I checked their email templates to see if they use Comic Sans. Nope. Even comic book fans seem to know that Comic Sans is a crappy font.

Oh well. No love for Comic Sans.