Famous Logos in Papyrus Font

Recently I discovered a Tumblr that features famous logos done in the font Comic Sans. Comic Sans is infamous in the design community as one of the ugliest fonts around. It’s not just that Comic Sans is ugly, it’s also overused. But it’s not the only one. The Papyrus font is another overused typeface. Mostly it’s used for restaurant menus, but you sometimes see it in more professional contexts. James Cameron even used it in his epic sci-fi film, “Avatar”. In any case, it got me to thinking, what would other famous logos look like in Papyrus? Let’s take a look.

Amazon

Amazon Logo in Papyrus Font

Citi

Citi Logo in Papyrus Font

CNN

CNN Logo in Papyrus Font

Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola Logo in Papyrus Font

eBay

eBay Logo in Papyrus Font

ExxonMobil

ExxonMobil Logo in Papyrus Font

Ford

Ford Logo in Papyrus Font

Google

Google Logo in Papyrus Font

IBM

IBM Logo in Papyrus Font

Walmart

Walmart Logo in Papyrus Font

Some of the logos look fine in Papyrus font. Logos that use simple sans-serif fonts, like Amazon and Walmart, look okay. Logos with elaborate script fonts, like Ford and Coca-Cola, are virtually unrecognizable. The CNN logo looks pretty good, though after connecting the letters and adding the white stripe, it no longer looks like Papyrus. That brings us to the heart of the question. Why is Papyrus such a bad font for logos? It has to do with the proportions.

Papyrus isn’t inherently bad. It’s just badly proportioned. Look at the size of the capital letters compared to the size of the lowercase letters. In many places, it just doesn’t work. And while a competent graphic designer can tweak the proportions, the result may bear little resemblance to the original Papyrus font. That’s because a good wordmark logo shouldn’t use a stock font. It should be tweaked, so that it becomes a unique work of art in and of itself.

Next week: logos in Algerian font.

Steve Lovelace

Steve Lovelace is a writer and graphic artist. After graduating Michigan State University in 2004, he taught Spanish in Samoa before moving to Dallas, Texas. He blogs regularly at http://steve-lovelace.com.

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28 Responses

  1. I think one of the reasons why it’s such a despised font is that it’s designed to look reminiscent of ancient Egyptian lettering, but it’s used for situations that aren’t trying to communicate ancient, Egyptian, or hand-crafted.

  2. eb says:

    I cringe every time I see Edible Arrangements – papyrus should be restricted to the under 12 demographic only. There is no instance where it tells the audience you are a professional with it.

  3. Oliver says:

    I was thinking very hard about using Papyrus for a new logo but got put off with some current uses and the fact that as a will writing professional it was just missing something. I thought it would convey a hand written approach but look professional as well, but I feel it was just too much off the beaten track for what I wanted. For this reason I went for Trajan Pro which is more professional but also better proportioned.

  4. rileytog says:

    the ford is much better.

  5. rileytog says:

    ford and coca cola

  6. Josh Kraft says:

    Nice, Walmart is awesome

  7. Mike Perdue says:

    +Josh Kraft Sometimes I had a Walmart one, lol

  8. Kanwaljeet Singh says:

    Some People Use this Coca Cola logo in Mandela effect (~) Coca~cola . They say (~) symbol never ever seen.

  9. Aidan R says:

    I Like walmart

  10. Joseph says:

    The Citi and Ebay logos actually work. But ya Papyrus is a logo that was part of it’s time. Like Photoshop effects back in the day, when they were first introduced people loved them, but trends change and Papyrus didn’t age well.

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