You should expect any Los Angeles web design company to know something about typography. But you can’t take anything for granted. You would expect a fancy Washington D.C. lawyer to know what looks appropriately professional. But this past week revealed that that’s not always the case.
The American public’s attention is largely glued to political news these days. Fortunately, though, there are unexpected sources of levity along the way.
On October 3, a former lawyer for the President of the United States submitted a letter to the House Intelligence Committee. It argued that requests for information from his clients were “overly broad and unduly burdensome.” But in some circles, the message was overshadowed by how it was presented: in Comic Sans font.
Unless you’re a graphic designer or part of a Los Angeles web design company, I don’t expect you to have an intimate knowledge of typography. But you’re probably familiar with this one. And you’ve probably heard it being criticized and ridiculed.
There’s nothing wrong with Comic Sans font, per se. But there is a time and a place for everything. And a formal legal document is definitely not the place for typography that could be described as “whimsical” or “childish.”
The lawyer in question, John Dowd, insisted in an e-mail to the Washington Post that no one had ever questioned his choice of font before. But that’s hard to believe. Maybe no one ever mentioned it to him, but people surely noticed it. And on some level, many of them probably questioned how seriously they should take his work.
Still, a strange font choice might be easy to overlook when you’re talking about a document that will probably only be read once by a handful of people. It’s a much more serious issue when you’re looking at the portfolio of a Los Angeles web design company and thinking about contracting with them to represent your brand online.
Typography is a vitally important factor in the impression your site leaves on consumers. Font, style, and spacing should be based on careful analysis of what best matches your message. Dowd said he prefers Comic Sans just because it’s “easy on the eye.” But as we all know, the easy way is rarely the best.
