Dear Friends,
In my Wednesday letter of last week, I announced my intention to no longer use ‘Comic Sans M T’ as my ‘font of choice’, but to switch to the wholly new and different ‘Perpetua’. I was amazed at the response. I had more replies to last week’s letter than to any other letter I had sent out since I began sending them out back in March. The responses were, broadly speaking, of two kinds. those who didn’t like the idea of changing from that which they had grown to love – It had to be Comic Sans MT or nothing; nothing could replace Comic Sans MT – and those who, while they were open to change, definitely did not want to change to Perpetua. Indeed, there were very few positive indicators as far as Perpetua was concerned. Then there were those who commented to the effect, ‘If it ain’t broke, why fix it?’ Why change something, just for change’s sake? Whilst there were those whose only concern was whether or not they would be able to read it. In fact, any font would do, as long as it could be read easily and clearly. They weren’t concerned about what it was called, just as long as it was ‘easy on the eye’. And then finally, there was the frankly hurtful comment to the effect, ‘I can’t be doing with all this Font nonsense, Comic Sans M T / Perpetua, – If it isn’t worth reading (& I’ve not read most of them!) then it doesn’t matter what fancy script its written in!!’
…So, what should I do? Should I give in and go back to ‘Good old Comic Sans M T’, or should I stick to my plan, and persevere with Perpetua? It is not an easy choice. I feel as if I am at a stylistic crossroads, a literary fork in the road, or even a calligraphic roundabout…
…But then there is another solution – another Font! Arial, maybe, Times New Roman perhaps, Elephant even, then again, Belin Sans FB, or Verdana…The list is endless…
…In the end a choice has to be made. And I have to choose because I have to be comfortable with it. It has to do the job I want it to do. It has to be able to get its message across. It has to be easily accessible to everyone. It may not be everybody’s first choice, but that is only because each of us is somebody different from each other. Was I doing it just for me? That isn’t good enough. But neither is not doing it just because there are some who don’t like it. I’m going to carry on with Perpetua for now…But if I have to give in to the inevitable, so be it…As Scripture says, ‘Let the reader understand’.