“Oh my god, it’s everywhere.”
To informed citizens, its prevalence is considered a cultural blight, the end of days, an aesthetic cancer for a society drunk on drivel. No surprise, it’s the typeface Papyrus, emphasis on the “pap”.
The condemnation of middle America’s favorite “font” is a favorite pastime for many. Plug in “papyrus sucks” into your preferred search engine and a journey into a world of contempt awaits. My esteemed colleague Erik’s forehead vein throbs to the thickness of a sausage when those three little syllables are uttered. Papyrus use is indeed chronic, popping up an average of three times for each city block here in otherwise beautiful Portland. It’s a flower shop, it’s a jewelry brand, it’s a food cart, it’s a bank. It functions so often as logotype that one can get confused as to what business it represents. Add a drop shadow it ascends to a transcendental level of ass. I agree, its time for Papyrus to cheese off and let me live my life without my eyes tightly shut.
Yet I find myself pondering the preponderance of Papyrus. This is a default Macintosh typeface that has captured the lazy hearts and minds of everyone from your Grandma to allegedly professional designers. Just what is it that makes this typeface spread like herpes at a kissing booth? Is it the fact that it’s a default system font for Macintoshes? That’s an aye, captain, but I suspect there’s some pan-cultural appeal in play. With its crinkly little edges, faux brush stroke character and awkward structure masquerading as organic letterforms, it covers all communicative bases. It truly can be applied to anything from Asian to automotive. It’s a tonal chameleon that doesn’t commit to a concept but takes on its context. There’s something fascinating in the banal genius of a typeface that can appeal to everyone.
The 80’s and 90’s saw the overuse of Lithos, Chicago and Tekton (burn in hell, all) but the sheer ubiquity of Papyrus is astonishing. Around these parts we speak about logos as empty vessels into which the consumer pours meaning. Papyrus then seems to be a hundred foot tall spitoon that every person in the world uses in passing.
It’s the typographic missionary position. Not all that interesting or experimental but most people seem to be doing it and it makes them feel pretty good.
The groundbreaking creation of the Papyrus, under Ramesses II in 1293 BC, and the impact it had on desktop publishing at the time, is often overlooked because the font has become so ubiquitous. It may not be as useful as it once was, but you need to take history into account before you go trashing something so vital to world culture. Also, you’re racist.
I always think that the reason it is used is because it is one of the few fonts that people recognize as being “different” or “unique”. Many can’t tell the difference between Arial or Verdana – Times and Garamond. But the lay person, when scrolling through their font choices will see Papyrus as a “Stand out” font.
There is also something emotional about the type that I think people are drawn to. Is it the crinkled edges that make it appeal to people’s wishes to put a personal touch on their identity/collateral?
Wouldn’t it be great to do a survey on why people chose papyrus? How did this particular font speak to them above all other choices?
And it would be great to do another survey on if people are actually drawn to it and make consumer decisions based on the power of the ‘pap’.
Re: Scoop Mahony- Racist? You just throw these little tidbits out for fun? Whatever. Ramses? Desktop publishing “at the time” in 1293?? Chris Costello, 1982.
Papyrus appealed to me at the beginning of my design work because I thought it looked earthy-yet-professional. I liked the Asian-Sequoia look and rejoiced that it was also legible, but never thought to use it on anything but yoga/flower/incense kinds of things (banks? really?). . . and then off it went.
And I agree with Siobhan, it got ugly because it became ubiquitous, used everywhere from Santa Fe to Grand Rapids. Hey, it could happen to Helvetica too, you know!
There’s no comparing Helvetica & Papyrus, and ubiquity doesn’t make something good or bad all by itself. Helvetica can be ubiquitous without being nauseating – because it was designed to be used everywhere (signs, for example). It’s not the over-use of Papyrus that makes it awful; that’s something that is magically encoded into its very structure. It would be bad if it had only been used once, in 1982 (or 1283 BC), on a yoga studio’s letterhead, in Topeka, KS, and then forgotten ever since. It would still be bad.
That said, the only time in my life that I was given responsibility for a typographic design decision (for a banner promoting an event), what did I choose? Papyrus, of course. That was almost 10 years ago, though, and I’m wiser now.
this is the type face used when a non-designer feels they should design their own logo and slap it up somewhere (everywhere).
I actually have a game I play-once I see it, I’ll see it at least 10 more times the same day…so I count ’em up.
I does haunt me, and everybody knows it. I’m just happy to know I have company 🙂