It's hard to believe that we're under a month away from 2022. With the end of the year in sight, we are being treated to a number of lists ranking the popularity of things over the past year. And the UK's favourite font has just been revealed.
There's a shocking twist that we can't believe amongst the results for the most popular font of 2021 – Comic Sans was voted the third most popular font in the UK. Seriously, who is still using Comic Sans? We thought we left it back in 2001. That being said, Arial, Calibri, Times New Roman and Georgia are all amongst the top five most popular fonts as well. If you're on the hunt for some brilliant fonts, make sure you check out our roundup of the best free fonts.
Arial ranked no.1 in the UK (Image credit: Pervian)
Perivan has released a number of infographics revealing the most and least popular fonts in the UK. We have to admit, we don't find the most popular fonts particularly exciting as they're all pretty bog-standard. But bizarrely enough, the polls have been done in a way that makes a couple of the most popular fonts some of the least popular as well (we're confused too – the specifics of the survey aren't made hugely clear), including Times New Roman and the infamous Comic Sans. Wingdings, Symbols and Impact were also included in the least popular top five, which we understand, but it begs the question, does Wingdings even count as a font?
If Comic Sans is both the most and least popular font of 2021, surely it's a genius paradox? According to Perivan, one participant said that Comic Sans is, "Useful for teaching primary", whereas another called it, "childish". So Comic Sans is simultaneously the butt of the joke, and educational – making it the unlikely anti-hero of the typography world. We've been questioning for years whether Comic Sans is as bad as we think, and this study has just perplexed us even more.
Comic Sans MS was voted the least popular font of 2021 (Image credit: Pervian)
Perivan also revealed the most searched for fonts in the world, and surprisingly enough, it was Helvetica. In fact, Helvetica racked up a whopping 135k average monthly searches. If you're a Helvetica fan but are hoping for a font that's a little more inspired, then make sure you check out our list of the best alternatives for Helvetica.
The study also showed that Coca-Cola had the most popular brand font, closely followed by Apple and Disney. We know for a fact that Spotify would never have made it to this list after the Spotify Wrapped font debacle, but we personally would have liked to have seen Google, and perhaps even Pokemon up there with their vibrant and original typefaces.
We don't think we would rank the likes of New Times Roman, Comic Sans and Arial amongst our favourite fonts. If it was down to us we would have definitely chosen a couple of fonts from our font roundups, like the best free brush fonts, or perhaps, seeing as it's December, one of the best free Christmas fonts.
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Amelia is Creative Bloq’s Staff Writer. After completing a degree in Popular Music and a Master’s in Song Writing, Amelia began designing posters, logos, album covers and websites for musicians. She now enjoys covering a range of topics on Creative Bloq, including posters, optical illusions, logos (she's a particular fan of logo Easter eggs), gaming and illustration. In her free time, she relishes in the likes of art (especially the Pre-Raphaelites), photography and literature. Amelia prides herself on her unorthodox creative methods, her Animal Crossing island and her extensive music library.
