Font - Alana Dimou

Papyrus is a very popular script/decorative typeface created in 1982 by designer Chris Costello, whom to this day speaks of its severe overuse.

The typeface is a decorative font, the creation of which spanned over 6 months; letters were hand drawn on textured paper by Costello to recreate what English text may have looked like if using ancient Egyptian writing apparatus, or a quill on papyrus. It was released in 1983 by Linotype who describes it as “a roman calligraphic

typeface with distinctive human touches... it imparts a warm and friendly ambience to everything from restaurant menus to book covers”. And every primary school assignment about ancient Egypt, might I add.

The typeface indeed possesses human touches with its distinctive irregular curves and high, horizontal strokes in its capital letters. The notches and frayed edges are indicative of sketching on a rough surface, however, it remains consistent with its irregularities thus restraining its supposed free, rustic and “warming” charm.As aforementioned Papyrus fits a script or decorative classification. There is the occasional small serif with a light stroke weight to accentuate the notches. There are mostly large and rounded counters, however with its high horizontal strokes, especially in capital letters, this is not always the case (for example capital ‘B’ has one large and one small counter).

Papyrus has, unfortunately, become the stock- standard font for anything and everything Egyptian and/or Mediterranean and Simon Garfield even states “Papyrus is the font you use to spell out the word ‘Egypt’”. The typeface is often inappropriately used from everything ranging from restaurant menus to natural, organic products. It is ridiculed to the point whereby dedicated websites such as www.papyruswatch.com have been founded to outlaw and humiliate inappropriate uses of the font.

Considerable controversy was sparked around the release of James Cameron’s Avatar when people came to realise Papyrus was the film’s default font. Its archaic nature may have

seemed like an appropriate fit for its title screen however many argue with such an enormous budget a new and more appropriate font could have been developed in lieu. The typeface was also used for subtitles throughout the film; a peculiar choice considering most script fonts aren’t terribly easy to read, especially from the distance of a cinema viewing.

Although many fonts seemingly appear to be everywhere (ie, Helvetica, Gill Sans) Papyrus possesses an uncanny ability to rub me the wrong way. Unlike other typefaces Papyrus lacks a sense of subtlety. There’s nothing neutral about it, it is unable to inoffensively blend in with the landscape when plastered on ill-fated signage and is nothing more than a novelty; a typographic faux pas. I believe the ultimate stereotypical relevance of anything vaguely controversial is The Simpsons test; Papyrus can be seen here in the signage for the health food store The Picky Vegan.

Refrences

Linotype, “Papyrus Regular”, http://www.linotype.com/173439/PapyrusStdRegular-product.html , last accessed 21 July 2012

Brown, S., ‘5 Terrible Fonts You Shouldn’t Use In Print Design’, 2007,

http://modernl.com/article/5-terrible-fonts-that-you-should-not-use-in- print-design, last accessed 21 July 2012

Garfield, S., ‘The 8 Worst Fonts In The World’, 2011, http://www.fastcodesign.com/1665318/the-8-worst-fonts-in-the-world, last accessed 21 July 2012

Anonymous., “Avatar is Papyrus?”, http://www.papyruswatch.com/2009/08/avatar-really.html, 2009, last accessed 21 July 2012