The most recent addition to the papyrus hall of shame is James Cameron’s Avatar, which looks infreakingcredible. And as much as the combination of Sigouney Weaver, James Cameron and giant blue creatures gets my heart aflutter, the sight of papyrus in the trailer was enough to make me wretch and STOP PAYING ATTENTION TO THE AWESOMENESS.

Joss, you signed the font crime

This isn’t the first time that papyrus has been used in otherwise awesome context. Joss Whedon’s Firefly used the font repeatedly and the sight of the Kaylee painting it on Serenity just validates the font for other people. Joss, you work so hard to overturn our narrative expectations, but then are victim of the most banal and offensive font crime possible.

Sweet Jesus, make it stop

Even my beloved Batman: The Animated Series used papyrus in the title card for the Tyger, Tyger episode. William Blake has never been so mangled before. And I’m not talking about the quality of the episode, I’m talking about fuglifying of one of the most beautiful poems in the English language by alluding to it with a font that has nothing to do with tigers and is really a slap in the face to Blake’s artistry:

The original plate of William Blake's The Tyger

Speaking of fuglyfied things, Richard sent me a link to what is the most awesome catalog of hideous design. The kind people at Your Logo Makes Me Barf have been posting fuglos (fucking ugly logos) for a while now and their inventory is eye gougingly amazing:

Beyond Words

Here’s a link to my growing papyrus flickr set that has photos from Vancouver, Portland, Seattle and Amsterdam.

sigh.

I found this example by my office when getting lunch. I showed the picture to Michelle who said she liked the use of papyrus in this instance. Michelle particularly liked the swirl for the “o” & wasn’t about to join me in ranting. Papyrus, you win that round.

However, it’s my blog & I’m here for the rants. I find this use of papyrus fascinating because it’s evidence of how designers are using it to also indicate “Asian” & at the very least somethig vaguely ethnic. You know one of those places where the people are olive coloured and the cuisine uses spices. Of some sort. I see visions of peasants & goats.

I wish Edward Siad were alive because this sign would be an interesting case of orientalism & othering. Orientalism isn’t even a fair term because Egypt has never really been viewed as part of the orient as has always been a distinct place due to its rich history & monumental accomplishments. This is perhaps the reason that the abuse of this font has gotten me all worked up. I really can’t handle how a font that is so culturally specific is being used to signify almost anything.

The menu with the font

This example can be found at Viva fine foods & bakery. I stop in occasionally when en route to the Vancouver Museum. Tasty breakfast pastries & coffee, nice staff, but unfortunately a perpetrator of font crime.

I’m trying to figure out the usage of papyrus here as Viva’s logo is a serif font. My inclination is to think that the designer used it to mean “ethnic” in some way, but I’m hesitant because I can’t really see any additional graphics that would point to it. I’m tempted to say that the use of papyrus here is supposed to indicate “hand made.” I’ve seen it used that way in Mexico for a Children’s festival or something about a year ago and is part of the inspiration for tracking the usage of this damned font.

Seriously, who thought this was a good idea?

I’d actually been saving this for a while now because I couldn’t believe how Papyrus was being used to signify that somthing is handmade or hewn from stone. The full context of this is that someone sells little fake rocks so you can build your own little teeny Inuksuk in your own home.