Congratulations to Helsinki for being chosen as the World Design Capital of 2012! However, 2012 is near and Helsinki doesn’t seem to realize this fact as it keeps building more and more tacky buildings like the new Helsinki Music Center. The only improvement on our city has been the recent covering of the tower of the Olympic Stadium (that thing was hideous). People are being tacky also in the design of their display windows. One is forced to ask: Where is the design? Where is the innovation?

We went out to the streets of our dear city to find the design, and praise the lord, we found it.

Everyone who has any experience in the world of graphic design must have noticed how the display windows and roadside ads have become unimaginative and boring. Nobody is brave enough to take chances anymore and, as we all know, you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs! A store front should not intimidate a customer but it should encourage him or her to step further to the wonderful world of wonderful products. There is a simple answer to this problem. It is an answer that far too few have found.

That answer is Comic Sans MS

Comic Sans is the most fashionable font in today’s demanding world of design, and it is sadly seen too seldom. The best explanation to its rarity is that most graphic designers do not want to reveal their trade secrets to others. This is understandable, because whenever Comic Sans appears, it results in immediate success; who would want to give up a gold mine?

Comic Sans is an expensive font to obtain and to print. The elaborate curves and details of the letters are difficult to print and expertise is needed. Not everyone has the capital necessary for Comic Sans. However, some independent entrepreneurs have discovered the gift of Comic Sans and have spent a fair amount of money to take their business to a whole new level.

For a long time Comic Sans has been a privilege of teachers all over Finland. Teachers traditionally have unlimited resources for printing material for students and can therefore use the most sophisticated font of them all. Comic Sans has a positive effect on the work amount of students as well as the quality of these works.

Comic Sans appeals to people of all ages and regions and this is why Helsinki should use exclusively Comic Sans in all domains of the festival year 2012. If we celebrate design, why don’t we do it in style?

Some accounts of Comic Sans:

• the first recorded appearance of the Font was on Homer’s Odyssey from approximately 800b.c.
• the US constitution is written in a style mimicking Comic Sans
• some scientists have argued that the strange markings on Ötzi the Iceman’s remains resemble Comic Sans
• Johannes Guttenberg invented the printing press after observing a nun having difficulties making a hand copy of the bible in Comic Sans
• C.G.E Mannerheim named his horse after Comic Sans

Further information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_sans http://www.adressit.com/comic-sans