» About     » Archive     » Search     » Forum     » RSS Feed     Updates Wednesdays

No. 66: Deplorem oopsum

First | Previous | 2016-04-27 | Next | Latest

Deplorem oopsum

First | Previous | 2016-04-27 | Next | Latest

Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/pomh/?comic=66

Strip by: Ian Boreham

{A product shot of a packet of "ipsum salts". The product name is written in Papyrus and Comic Sans. The kerning is bad. The text on the side of the box is lorem ipsum, set in a narrow column and justified so that each line contains only one word or two badly spaced words.}

{The product description is printed with very loose tracking, making it difficult to locate word breaks, and the lines are set so close that they are touching each other.}

product description: For use when offended by bad typography.

{Where the product weight would normally be found, the packet reads "20.3 pt".}

The author writes:

Feeling faint from failed fonts? Tipsy from trashy typesetting? Low from leading that lacks? Keeling from klutzed kerning? Well, you need Ipsum Salts, guaranteed to refresh and revitalise, and treat a whole range of typographically-induced symptoms. Just be careful not to look too closely at the packaging...

Also, not to be confused with spelling salts, for reviving those who have fainted due to poor spelling.

Speaking of smelling salts, I wonder what the whole "shocked ladies fainting" thing was about, back in the 18th and 19th centuries. I read that tight corsets were supposed to restrict breathing, making it more likely that a woman would faint. However, to be honest, I suspect that (to the extent that it actually happened) a fair bit of it was social conditioning and faking it, kind of like stage hypnosis. Now that that it doesn't really happen anymore, the market for smelling salts for reviving fainted ladies must have vanished.

When deciding which text to kern badly in the product title, I figured the "LT" combination would be the best candidate. Then I noticed that on several of the epsom salts package images I had found on Google, those letters were already kerned badly. So, take that, crappy packaging designers! I'm telling it like it is!

Drawn in Inkscape.