Well, you may not be aware, but Comic Sans is a pretty controversial font, still reeling from the online hate campaign unleashed on it in 2010.

But in an exciting turnaround, Comic Sans is having a renaissance.  Yes, following tests that showed that using the Comic Sans font makes complex information easier to understand, scientists from CERN (European Council for Nuclear Research) are using comic sans to write up their findings. Seemingly it’s the perfect font to talk the language of physics.

So, how does this relate to the world of insight? In the field of NPD, sometimes we need to test very complex concepts and ask respondents to assimilate quite complex information very quickly. Sometimes we’re communicating concepts which are relatively easy to grasp but to vulnerable audiences who need some help processing this information. So if it’s good enough for CERN, its good enough for us. Let’s use Comic Sans (or Comic CERNs as it’s now known) for concept descriptions.

But don’t think this lets us off the hook and you can now run amok with that stimulus! We have a duty of care to our respondents and to you. If they can’t understand it they can’t give us feedback on it and we can’t give you the answers you need: express your concepts in the customer’s language, express products in terms of benefits versus features, help them to help you.