ISO50

If you believe that all popular things are used inappropriately, then you’ve answered your own question: Archer is popular, therefore it is being used inappropriately. It’s almost inevitable.

There are two problems with this line of reasoning, though:

There’s nothing to indicate that inappropriate design would be reduced if Archer weren’t popular. Bad design might be spread out among 20 different typefaces, instead of consolidated into a single face, but bad design springs from designers’ bad choices, not the tools those designers chose to use.

You’re also ignoring all of Archer’s qualities, good and bad: as if the only thing wrong with Papyrus – the only way Archer and Papyrus are similar – is popularity. FF DIN is really popular, too, but it’s not display type, so it’s not as eye-catching. But if the argument is that display type can never get popular without being bad, we’re not exercising judgment about design, only fashion.

– Love your work.

Also, I have to give props to Richard. I hadn’t even considered some of his points.

I to love Archer and I completely agree with your point. I really dislike Papyrus. Not just for the overuse and misuse of it but it’s just not a timeless typeface IMHO and has some serious limitations at smaller sizes. Plus the fact that its free makes it even more of a candidate for misuse. Archer has a certain class to it, a timeless potential and it’s not free (yet and I hope never).

I think you’re confusing Papyrus with Trajan, which has plagued movie posters for years. Papyrus is another plague, but not of the poster world.

Archer is hardly overused. In fact its not even the most overused H&FJ typeface that was commissioned for a magazine. Gotham is spreading far more quickly.

Even if it spreads, it will never reach the level of Comic Sans, Papyrus, or Helvetica/Arial. Well, unless it becomes a pre-installed typeface on every computer. Even then, would it really be a problem? The issue with a typeface like Papyrus is that its really obnoxious and blatantly obvious to pretty much everyone. Archer on the other hand is quite beautiful, classic, and can be used for pretty much any type of design.

This is a hard topic because there is not a very concrete problem. Or maybe there isn’t a problem at all. Like Richard said above popularity isn’t a problem. Neither is overuse, if the situation indicates a particular font is the font for the job. Archer, Papyrus, Helvetica, and a dozen other fonts all do a job and do it well. Well enough to be widely know for it. And that is where we get bothered

It would seem then that the problem is not in the wide use of a font, but in the wide knowledge of the use of a font…

What i mean is that maybe the real problem (and fear) we are having is when design choices and solutions become obvious enough to popular culture that no one need ask a designer anymore. Our professional value goes down, and we have to endure seeing bad design floating around as salt in our wounds.

PS. I would rather see nice fonts, doing the job they were meant to do than see a stream of total garbage fonts from free sites.

I am not a fan of archer & I hate seeing it everywhere. If someone was to misuse a face, why not misuse something awesome like black slabbath?

We pay big bucks for good typography, so it wounds our pride when everyone else does the same thing, because then we’re not different anymore. If I bought a Mini Cooper for its great craft and cool looks, and everyone else goes out and gets one, I’m not that special anymore.

But, this isn’t a big deal for more generic fonts like Helvetica, Univers, or Gotham because, like the Camry or Accord, they don’t have that instant recognition that Archer and Papyrus have. So, when you buy a font for its style instead of its function, you’ll inevitably be disappointed when more people get on the bandwagon.

And some people really do get ticked off when they see Hummers sporting 30 inch rims and not a bit of dirt on the car, so a righteous anger at the font being used incorrectly is an interesting one to consider. But doesn’t that make you question the purpose of the thing anyways? Who’s to say that Hummers aren’t supposed to be status symbols and not off-roaders? Why is the SF Chronicle wrong for using Archer (not saying I disagree, just saying)?

Just some food for thought.

Cheers,
Brendan

Archer is the new Gotham. Gotham is the new Helvetica.

Papyrus is not a good typeface. The over use of Archer does not make it a bad typeface, although I do agree with everything you said here, I am really, really sick of seeing it all over the place. Just I am sick of seeing Gotham everywhere.

The trouble is, everyone know that H&FJ make really beautiful typefaces, and it is an easy solution to a lot of designers who might rely on a solid typeface rather than a solid design.

I think a lot of design studios drop the cash to license the typeface and as such try to use it as much as possible to recoup the cost. HF&J fonts aren’t the cheapest,but they’re also some of the best. I know I use it frequently because it’s one of the fonts Ive purchased and I can’t get enough of the light version.

Archer has been around a lot lately. In fact, without even realizing it, it entered one of my ads I was designing under a different name: Berthold City. Now I know these two are not exactly the same, but my point is: I have seen Archer around so much that it burned into my subconscious and I fit a similar font into a design without even realizing it.
Is it the next papyrus? No. Papyrus is dreadful. Papyrus is the font for massage shops and bakeries that are to cheap to hire good design help. Papyrus is the microsoft Publisher users font of choice on their masterworks. Papyrus looks like it took about 10 minutes to shit out on paper, scan in, vectorize sell.
Archer is no Papyrus.

Archer and Papyrus have nothing in common.

Papyrus fall into the same category as Comic Sans and other fonts that are “popular and dont look good”.

Posts like this and blogs like archer alert will be the demise of Archer. Untrained designers and potential clients will now want to use Archer through its fashion.

Lets all keep Archer as quiet as possible and let the fad die out on its own.

I don’t even like Archer. And I don’t necessarily buy the argument that it’s a great typeface that’s just being used inappropriately. It feels super girly to me – which makes sense, since it was created for Martha Stewart Living (which I didn’t know before today) – so, yeah: for skin products and cook books it’s probably fine. But when Newsweek uses it to print the news, I feel like they may as well be dotting the “i’s” in ’10 Killed in Car Bomb’ with hearts.

This argument is like saying that you are not into a band as much as you used to be because everyone likes them now, including people who don’t listen to them in the way that you feel like they should be listened to. It’s like when I got all bent out of shape in high school because they started playing Depeche Mode on the radio and then the jocks started listening and I believed that DM was only for cool kids with modern hair!

It’s just a font. We take this stuff way too seriously. It really does not matter. People are free to use fonts how they’d like. What constitutes “misuse” anyway? Are there guidelines that come with the fonts? “Congratulations on purchasing Archer. Please use these fonts only for work fitting these specific criteria!”

If you want to have a font that you can control and keep from being “misused” maybe you should make one that is bespoke to your needs and that you do not share with others.

Regardless, I understand where you are coming from Alex. I do. We gotta let it go!

@Ben, the band argument is kind of off… It’s more like when you love a song and then it gets played on the radio all the time and you hear it so many times that you become really sick of it.

Wow. That post was average and elitist.
Normally I enjoy this blog and appreciate your efforts.