Write Or Fight!: Does Writing In Comic Sans Really Help You?

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Bella Young, Reporter

If you’re a writer, chances are you’ve seen this piece of advice going around: 

“Try writing in comic sans, it helps you write.” 

Now, I’m not one for writing in anything but the default font, but for the sake of my own curiosity, and to personally test these claims, I’m going to write this entire story in Comic Sans.  

It’s already fairly common knowledge that Comic Sans is a great font for people with dyslexia. In 2013, a group of Spanish researchers gave 48 dyslexics 12 differently styled texts to figure out which was easiest for them to read, and they figured out that fonts with irregularities in the shapes of the letters were easier for dyslexics to read. Comic sans was not one of the fonts tested, but it does have the same unique shape in its letters that makes it so dyslexic people can read easier (for example: b and d are different shapes instead of just being the same character flipped). 

However, there are also benefits to Comic Sans even if you aren’t dyslexic, such as supposedly improving your creativity and speed. Every once in a while, someone rediscovers the Comic Sans trick and it circulates on social media for a bit before dying back down. I read through several posts of people swearing by Comic Sans, and I noticed a strange pattern. Almost everyone mentioned how “fun” Comic Sans was.

 In this blog post here, the author says, “Seeing one’s own work stripped of pretension down to its most basic level, language wearing children’s clothes, is a powerful thing.”

Comic Sans allows people an opportunity to see their writing in a different light. Trying to get over a writers block? Change your font to something fun and unusual! That way you’re shifting your perspective, therefore shifting your thinking process, which lets you come up with new ideas easier. 

I am left wondering how much of it is a placebo, butComic Sans is an iconic font whether you love it or hate it. A clever trick wrapped up in playful curves, and perhaps a bit of help for your next writing project!