I've never had much interest in typography, apart from early experiments in creating unreadable documents in 8-point Gothic Bold or whatnot. Yes, I was aware that Steve Jobs credited a college course in calligraphy with inspiring his life-long obsession with design and creating multiple typefaces and proportional fonts for his computers. I also know that there are many other people who find the field fascinating, for example this discussion on the differences between Arial and Helvitica, which becomes almost theological in intensity as every last detail of kerning and leading is endlessly hashed over. Me, I prefer drinking.
But there's one thing that we can (nearly) all agree on; and that is that the family of fonts that go by the name Comic Sans is ill-suited for serious work, being more appropriate for birthday-party invitations and cutesy-pie "I can haz cheezeboiger?" cat pictures.
Unfortunately the scientists at CERN didn't get the memo, and chose to use the font to caption various charts and diagrams they provided on their search for Higgs-Boson.
CBC:
If existence of the Higgs Boson particle is confirmed, it would make history as one of the biggest scientific discoveries of the 21st century.
Given its importance, you may think the so-called “God particle” wouldn’t have to share the limelight – but that it did, and with the much-maligned font Comic Sans, no less.
That’s right – not even the so-called “God particle” could keep the undivided attention of those with strong feelings about the cartoonish font.
Comic Sans has a lot of baggage, as it turns out. The internet is littered with anti Comic Sans sentiments, warning people not to use the font if they want to be taken seriously.
"Like the tone of a spoken voice, the characteristics of a typeface convey meaning. The design of the typeface is, in itself, its voice. Often this voice speaks louder than the text itself," write the authors of bancomicsans.com.
They go on to deride Comic Sans as being silly, childish and far too casual -- "analogous to showing up for a black tie event in a clown costume."
Or maybe the "God particle" has a "honk-honk" sense of humor.