Microsoft’s core fonts…gone?
Sigh. It seems that Microsoft has taken down the official download page for their core fonts package citing repeated end-user license violations as the reason for its removal. [link via MetaFilter and Typographica]
Now what am I going to do to install Trebuchet and Andale on all the old Win98 and MacOS 7 machines I come across? Wait…there are already plenty of unofficial mirrors of the fonts that– ironically enough– are fully in compliance with the above-mentioned license agreement. Go figure.
(Then again, on the bright side, there’s no more link to Comic Sans on Microsoft’s page. Talk about a font that gets severely misused…)
What, may I ask, is wrong with Comic Sans? It’s a font I’ve always rather liked, though I suppose it might be rather overused.
Comment by Alison — 14-Aug-2002 @ 1:30 pm
Well, yeah, it’s not in itself a bad font; I guess I should’ve made that clearer. It’s great for titling and for, well, “informal” matters such as instant messaging.
The problem is that I’ve come across serious business web sites which were set in Comic Sans. For that matter, I’ve seen multi-page school reports rendered in it as well.
Then again, I guess when you combine freely-distributable fonts with general bad taste, chaos will ensue regardless of the typeface…
Comment by codeman38 — 14-Aug-2002 @ 4:38 pm
Oh, I get it now. I guess I’ve been fortunate enough not to see any serious misusues of the font.
Comment by Alison — 16-Aug-2002 @ 12:47 pm