I appreciate the post because I had been wondering what the name of the font was for a while. And I must say, at the moment I despise the abuse of it slightly more than Comic Sans.

When I first met papyrus I fell in love with it. It seemed to be the only unique and earthy font that came default on my computer. I was a newb, had no idea there were free fonts available back then. I’ve lost my affinity for this font and do recognize that it’s been overused. I’m also guilty of using bleeding cowboys.

So maybe free fonts are a good thing, that way those with a limited budget have more choices! There is always a way to turn a negative situation into a positive one, even if it’s just a learning experience.

Btw, I found this gorgeous free font the other day with very generous licensing information. I don’t know if it’s a ripoff of any other font, but it is definitely beautiful in my eyes!!

Otama ep Typeface

My vote for the most overused font is Arial, and I would personally like it to go away as soon as possible. It is a cheap knock-off of Helvetica, which is also overused, but at least very classic and durable in its design. My particular Arial pet peeves are the tell-tale Rs and Ses, which I will probably be forced to view for hours on end in hell if I don’t make it to the other place. I am very glad for the advent of Georgia as both a headline and body text font on the Web (thank you WordPress!), though it too is becoming overused. (If you have to overuse a font, Georgia stands up to overuse a lot better than Arial.) Typography trends come and go in waves, and right now the trend is toward Egyptian/slab-serif fonts, but this too will become overused and a new trend will come to supplant it, along with all the vegetative swirls that often accompany it. Anyone care to agree or disagree?

Papyrus and Comic Sans are easily available to just about everyone who owns a computer- and most of these people aren’t designers of any degree. Typefaces like Helvetica, on the other hand, are typically held by graphic designers and studios- places that know how and when to properly use a font. Those who are using Papyrus and Comic Sans aren’t trained in the same way- thus more than willingly able to use them for applications that they were never designed for.

I think Comic Sans or Papyrus could be properly used successfully in a design. But the stigma that goes along with the amateur ranking each font has will always keep me away from them. I’ve gone as far as removing both from my system.